Semper Fi
by CharNobyl
Summary: The tale of the Marines aboard the USS Valor, from first contact with the Necromorph-bearing escape pod to the desperate battle aboard the merged hulks of the Valor and Ishimura.
1. Chapter 1

**Normally, I'd have spent more time on background for the Marines, the mission, etc, but this's been sitting around my works in progress folder for ages due to my story-hopping. Anyways, here's the story so far, sans any form of proofreading. Odds are I'll be focusing the most on this and my Fallout story, seeing as those are the two I've not yet written myself into corners. **

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Gunnery Sergeant Charles Bass flipped himself over the side of his bunk, planting his booted feet onto the metal floor of the on-ship barracks. He'd gotten in about three hours of sleep. It was enough. Stim packs would take care of the rest for him.

The Marine wasn't in his armor, leaving him with just his fatigues, boots, and gray t-shirt with 'Bass' stenciled on the breast. Aside from his rank, there was little to separate Gunnery Sergeant Bass from the privates and lance corporals around him. Just over six feet, brown hair, and brown eyes. No distinguishing physical features to him, but he had an air of command about him that his men had come to respect.

The USM _Valor_'s crew was made up of the best and the brightest. And by Marine standards, that was saying something. A nearly spotless record adorned each man's record, and every soldier had the finest technology and training that the Earth Defense Force could offer. See the galaxy, defend mankind, and get paid while you do it.

"What's the scoop, Gunny?" Private First Class Joseph Dean called over the din to his commanding officer. The comparative rookie was in the process of lacing up his boots as Bass looked down at his wrist-mounted computer, punching several keys and bringing up the holographic display.

"According to Lieutennat Hikowa…" he paused, "We've got a downed planet cracker, USG _Ishimura_, dead in the void. Distress signal's been put out, and we're the closest help available."

"Why's it dead?" Dean asked, slapping a hand on the side of his boot and climbing to his feet, "Hardware problems, pirates?"

"You think we're getting called in for tech support, Dean-o?" PFC James McNeal laughed, "We're the corp, not Geek Squad."

"Huh," Bass tapped a few more keys, "Hikowa's being vague as hell. Could be a colonial revolt, or pirates. Gimme a few, I'll see what I can find out." Bass keyed in the bridge's frequency, brining up the holographic screen with his lieutenant's face.

"_This is Hikowa. That you, Charlie?_" the image asked.

"Yeah, it's me," Bass replied, jumping right to the point, "Mission specs are a bit unspecific. What're we up against?"

"_Your guess is as good as mine_," Hikowa's image shrugged, "_I'm not sure if anyone really knows. It might explain why you're going in with full combat loads._" Bass whistled as he scrolled down on the specs list. Hikowa was right: they were going in loud and hard.

"Holy shit," Lance Corporal Stanislaus Kaczynski chuckled, "Looks like we're going to war. You seen this shit, Dave?" The Marine gestured to PFC William Sherman.

"Damn," Sherman muttered, "Sixes for everyone, and hot guns? We walking into a pirate cove or something?"

"Alright, stow it," Bass finally quieted the speculation, then turned back to Hikowa, "You sure we don't have anything else to go off?"

"_Sorry, Charlie_," Hikowa smirked apologetically, "_Best I can do is tell you to suit up and I'll try to get more intel._"

"Fair enough," Bass sighed, "Bass out." The other two dozen Marines of the wing looked to the Gunnery Sergeant for further orders. Bass thought for a moment, then called out,

"You heard the El-Tee. Full combat loads. Op officially begins in two hours. Be ready." The other men snapped crisp salutes and gave a chorus of affirmatives. They knew how to do their jobs. No need for anything further for the time being.

Elsewhere on the ship, other Marine groups were doing the same. The Marine presence in the ship was spread out in three groups of ten to twelve as to ensure that they would be readily present for any given crisis. The armories were generally right beside the barracks for convenience's sake. Bass was in charge of Omega group. The other two, Alpha and Beta, were under Sergeants Willis and Campbell, respectively.

Bass was first in, approaching one of a dozen chambers aligned along one wall. The door slid open with a pneumatic hiss, revealing a form-fitting chamber within. Bass stepped inside as the doors sealed shut.

Within the chamber, mechanical arms worked overtime to suit up the Marine officer, dressing him in his Level Six Military Armor. It had a fully integrated heads-up display, communications system, light amplification, and countless other technological innovations. And, of course, it was the best personal body armor for its weight. The skull-shaped helmet of the Level Six was a feared image among all those who might oppose the Marines.

Bass stepped from chamber as his RIG synchronized with the new suit and began to run the diagnostic tests. The other dozen men were following suite as Bass approached the adjacent wall where the bread-and-butter of the Marine's strength was: the rack of high-powered weapons.

Bass's weapon was the standard issue tri-barreled SWS Motorized Pulse Rifle. He took several extra clips, slotting them into his suits magazine grips. Next was N99 'Divot' handgun, a sidearm capable of both semi and fully automatic fire. Modest caliber, good accuracy, and minimal recoil. But it was still easily upstaged by the pulse rifle.

But not every Marine took a rifle. Kaczynski was one of two who took a large case from the gunrack, flipping open the latches and assembling the weapon within. Tri-barreled, like the pulse rifle, but significantly larger and hooked up to an ammo feed leading to a back-mounted unit.

The M31 'Grinder' was a heavy-duty support weapon, possessing a rate of fire superior to even the pulse rifle through the virtue of its extra power supply and rotating barrels. Kaczynski, along with Private Jared Wallace, were the wielders of these powerful weapons, capable of firing nearly 3000 rounds a minute as opposed to the pulse rifle's 1500 RPM.

Bass, Dean, and six other Marines were armed with the basic pulse rifle. High rate of fire, good accuracy, and just as reliable as an AK-47. McNeal and Sherman took different routes: the Pancor Jackhammer 12 gauge shotgun. Comparatively, it had a dramatically lower firing rate when compared to the pulse rifles, firing 240 shells per minute due to its automatic design, but it could still drain its ten-shell drum magazine in just under five seconds.

The Jackhammer's were ideal for shipboard combat, being most at home in the cramped corridors and enclosed spaces. Their 12 gauge 'Magnum' shells had superior penetration to most other shotgun ammunition, but were still inferior to the armor-piercing pulse rifles. Thus, the presence of two was added to the dozen men to balance out the advantages and disadvantages of each.

"_Mags out and safeties on_," Bass called out, voice slightly warped by his helmet's speakers, stating what the Marines were probably already doing for protocol's sake. Kaczynski and Wallace had already hooked their ammo belts up to their Grinders, but they'd yet to activate the power supply or switch off their safeties. Friendly fire accidents out of firefights were for amateurs, and these men were professionals.

"_ETA to Ishimura is one hour,_" Bass checked his gear once more as his HUD superimposed itself over his surroundings, "_Be ready for anything. Commander wouldn't be sending us in if_-" A rumble spread through the ship, light, but enough to make the assembled Marines glance to one another.

"_The fuck was that?_"

"_Asteroid field?_"

"_We've got cannons for that. What's the word from bridge, Gunny?_" Dean finally cut in. Bass opened up his frequency again, hailing Hikowa once more.

"_Just felt a tremor down here, Lieutenant,_" Bass began, "_Got anything for us?_" Hikowa was visibly agitated, but not by Bass' transmission.

"_We took a hit from one of Ishimura's escape pods. The idiot hit us near C21. We're sending an EMT team to check it out. They'll cut them out and see if we've got a survivor._"

"_Need us in C-Block?_" Bass asked. Hikowa shook his head.

"_Cadigan says that Beta's got it under control. Ten Marines should be more than enough to chastise a shitty pilot._"

* * *

"-chastise a shitty pilot," Lieutenant Jacob Hikowa replied from his chair on the _Valor_'s bridge. Around him, a semi-circle of pilots, navigators, and officers sat at their respective chairs before holographic screens and solid-light keyboards, controlling every aspect of the ship.

The hull breech had already been sealed off almost immediately after the impact. The passengers aboard the escape pod hadn't responded to efforts to hail them, and it had slipped through an asteroid belt to prevent the crew from taking any countermeasures until it had already hit them. No one had been killed, fortunately, so the pilot would probably be chastised at most.

Then again, to be running that scared from the _Ishimura_ to ram straight into a destroyer, something must be up. Hikowa opened up a new channel on his communications screen.

"Campbell, you there?" he addressed the sergeant of Beta squad. The helmeted head of Sergeant Campbell appeared on the screen.

"_Roger, lieutenant. Engineer's cracking open the pod now. We're making our way through C-Block._"

"Good. Give me a sitrep once you're on site," Hikowa nodded, "I'll get in touch with the engie on site. Who is it?"

"_Vernes, sir_."

"Alright. Hikowa out. Radio if anything new comes up."

"_Roger, lieutenant._" The line clicked shut. Hikowa did a quick check of the escape pod's registration, confirming the origin. You could never be too careful. The _Ishimura's_ comm channels might have been down, but he could broadcast them a loop to let them know the _Valor_ had the escape pod in safe hands.

He hailed the _Ishimura's_ main line. Still no response. They'd be in deep shit when they got their act together and got back into unrestricted space.

"This is USM Valor, broadcasting on all frequencies to USG Ishimura in response to your SOS. We've…" he paused a moment, "…picked up your escape pod Number 47, and are en route to your position." No need to give them extra reason to worry about their situation. The crash was on a need-to-know basis, as far as Hikowa was concerned.

"This message will repeat every thirty seconds until you respond." That was that. Now to check in on the recovery team. Hikowa keyed in Julius Vernes frequency.

"Julius, this is Lieutenant Hikowa. Any progress on cracking open that ship?" The engineer's distinctive faceplate lifted to reveal his face as he looked up from his work.

"_Working on that now, door's about half off. I should have it done in-guh!_" Hikowa furrowed his brow as the line went dead, Verne's last noise puzzling him further. Was the crashed ship somehow causing problems with the communications grid? He would try to contact Campbell or Bass to confirm the problem.

"Jesus Christ!" a nearby ensign looked up from his screen, "Commander! We've got problems with the rescue team!"

Near the floating model of the ship in the center of the bridge stood Commander Frank Cadigan, an aging man with graying hair, a nearly trimmed beard, and a right breast full of the bars of his position. He placed both hands on the guardrail and leaned forward.

"What's the problem, ensign? Talk to me!"

"It's Vernes and Elliot, sir, they both-" he glanced back down to the screen as if to confirm, only for his eyes to widen further.

"They both what?" Cadigan demanded, "Out with it, man!"

"Mendoza and Freeman, too," the ensign returned eye contact with the commander, "They've all flatlined, just like that!"

"That's impossible," Cadigan brought up the crew roster on his screen, "What could have-" The roster appeared in the form of a square subdivided into some seventy other squares, each one with a picture of a crewman or soldier. Four had already gone from green to red. Then another. And another. There were only six people in the rescue team, including the accompanying engineer.

"Shit," Cadigan swore, turning to Hikowa, "Lieutenant, get those Marines down there as fast as they can. And warn them, Goddamnit. I won't have any more dead men on my hands."

"But _what_ killed them?" the ensign tapped several keys, "It could have been a secondary explosion, or-Gods in heaven." He stopped and stared at the screen as the security feed came up: the deck was awash with blood and limbs. The remains of the six crew members were strewn about on the ground, and the half of the door that had yet to be cut away had been ripped from the escape pod's hull.

"Christ almighty," Cadigan breathed, then addressed Hikowa once more, "Get to those men _now_." Hikowa nodded and began to punch in commands, only for Campbell to beat him to the punch.

"-_therfucker! Get Walker up here, ASAP! Stop the bleeding!_" Campell's helmeted face appeared on the screen, looking left and right before actually addressing Hikowa.

"_Lieutenant, we've got hostiles onboard. The thing practically ripped Jenkin's head off, and I've got three men wounded. This thing isn't human, sir. We put it down, but I don't know how many more ther-_"

Cut off again. Hikowa only now noticed that sweat was beading on the back of his neck. In the climate-controlled bridge, that certainly shouldn't be happening. Perhaps the cause was the series of green pictures that turned red as more of the crew of the _USS Valor_ lost their lives.

"Get me the security feed, and get contact with them back up!" Cadigan barked, "I want to know what's on my damn ship!"

The screen in front of Hikowa flickered, giving a jumpy image from the squad, and garbled audio. It sounded like the entire squad's chatter had been patched through to the channel, the background filled with gunfire.

"_-ck! Fuck! Put it down!_"

"_Stay dead alre-agh!_"

"_Fall back! Get the door shut!_"

"_Close it! Close it!_"

Deathly silence followed, finally broken by heavy breathing. Hikowa keyed open his side of the channel.

"Sergeant, are you there?" he asked, "What's your situation?"

"_Sarge's dead,_" a clearly frightened voice replied, "_Fuck, they're __**all**__ dead, now. It's on the other side of the door now._"

"What is?" Hikowa stood, half-aware of what he was doing, "_What_ did this, soldier?"

"_But it's not gonna get me,_" the Marine continued regardless, "_I'm not dying. Not like that. Not like them. Not-_" A sudden stocatto of gunfire cut through the transmission.

"Soldier, what's going on?" Hikowa almost shouted, "What's your situation?"

"_It's stopped…_" the man murmured, "_It stopped banging. Now it's all around me. In the walls. It-_" A metallic bang was heard in the background, followed by a fully automatic spray from the Marine's pulse rifle.

Then everything was silent once again. As quickly as that, the noise subsided, and the bridge was left with only the sounds of the crew's whispers. Cadigan was the first to recover from the shock. Thirty years in the corp had given him the ability to adapt to new situations, if nothing else. He keyed open his own comm channel, this time a general frequency.

"This is Commander Cadigan," he began, almost not believing his own statement, "We have hostiles on board. This is **not** a drill! Hostiles are alien, repeat, alien, and extremely dangerous! All personnel have weapons ready and fire at will!" He closed the comm, then looked around the bridge and drew his sidearm.

"That applies to all of us, too," he said, sliding a clip into his weapon and priming it, "Be ready for the worst."

* * *

"_You gotta be kidding me_," Bass shook his head, then waved to his team, "You heard the commander, we're going in loud and hard. Stay together and check your fire."

"_But sir_," McNeal half laughed, "_Aliens? Since when do we fight aliens?_"

"_First time for everything, private. Fall in_," Bass' tone prompted McNeal to avoid any further protest. Now was no time for jokes.

The armory doors hissed open, and the twelve Marines moved into the hall, shotguns on point and rear. The Grinders weren't prepped yet, but could be online within seconds should they encounter hostiles. Hopefully that wouldn't be too late.

"_Hikowa, you there?_" Bass opened his comm to the bridge. The shaken image of the lieutenant appeared after a moment.

"_I'm here,_" he wiped sweat from his forehead, "_Be careful, Gunny. Whatever's onboard just took out Beta team_." A long silence followed as the Marine squad looked to one another, all silently posing questions as to how any hostile could kill an entire Marine squad.

"_All of them?_"

"_Yes, Gunny,_" Hikowa finished, "_All of them. Be careful. We're not entirely sure what we're dealing with_."

"_Roger. Moving to C-Block. Bass out_." Bass closed his side, then waved his team forward. Non-Marine personnel were already gone, leaving only the Marines and their quarry moving on the ship.

But what _was_ their quarry? Bass couldn't help but wonder what they could possibly be up against. This could very well be humanity's first contact, and it seemed like they were hostile. There could be hundreds of them flooding into the ship, right on the other side of any door they opened. Bass was virtually blind, and that was disconcerting.

Door after door, room after room, and empty corridor after empty corridor. Nothing so far, and nothing was somehow more terrifying than whatever they were looking for. Radio silence had come naturally, and each man felt himself checking beside him to affirm that he was not alone in the corridors.

Omega team had reached the barren mess hall when the ship was suddenly plunged into darkness. A chorus of metallic clacks followed as the men fanned out their guns, scanning all possible points of entry. Red emergency lights flickered on after a moment, bathing them in the eerie crimson light.

"_Headlamps_," Bass ordered, reaching up to the side of his helmet and tapping the side, igniting the lights mounted on either side of the brow. His men followed suite, and scanned the messhall once more. Nothing to be seen.

The sound of chitin on steel skittered through their ranks. Weapons were primed, but no one fired. Everyone looked around them, trying to find the source of the noise. The helmet lamps could find nothing until Bass finally looked up.

"_The vent_!" he shouted, "_Perforate it_!" Several pulse rifles opened fire, tearing through the air duct and peppering their target within. An inhuman screech of pain echoed through the mess hall, presumably from their unseen foe.

"_Hold up,_" Bass raised a hand, cutting off the steam of fire, "_Cease fire!_" The cry ended, too, and the now hole-riddled ventilation duct began to seep blood.

"_Looks like a kill, Gunny,_" McNeal clicked the safety back onto his Jackhammer. Bass couldn't help but agree, but the unearthly silence still disturbed him.

Bass felt something heavy hit his head as a scream of tearing metal cut through his eardrums like a razor. Bass was knocked to the ground by the impact, and the chorus of cries and gunfire indicated that whatever they were after wasn't dead.

"_Shit! The hell is that?_" McNeal shouted, frantically priming his shotgun and taking aim. The clawed abomination pulled one of its long talons from a fallen Marine's throat, pouncing on another as McNeal pulled the trigger.

The twelve-gauge magnum shell punched the beast off the bleeding Marine. Now, the entire squad's firepower was turned on it, minus the two Grinders and the guns of the fallen. The creature seemed to fall apart under the barrage, tearing off a good third of its head and both of its clawed arms. It stood for a moment longer, the collapsed as its shredded legs gave out.

"_Fuck_," Dean breathed, looking at the mutilated corpse, "_McNeal's got a point. What the hell __**is**__ that thing_?" Bass had pulled himself to his feet, shaking his head to clear his vision.

"_Whatever it is, it's what did in Beta squad_," the gunnery sergeant replied, "_And I can see why_." Two of his men were dead, the long talons thin enough to slip between the cracks of their armor but long enough to cause enough damage to be fatal.

"_What now, sarge?_" McNeal voiced what they were all thinking. Bass actually had to pause a moment. They'd just dispatched a clearly inhuman enemy, he had two men dead on his hands…

"_Hang on,_" he motioned, "_I'll hail the El-Tee. Secure the area._" The Marines moved uneasily about the mess hall as Bass keyed open the bridge's frequency.

"_Lieutenant, I've got a dead hostile and two dead men. I'm unsure of how to proceed without a sitrep for the rest of the ship_," he paused, waiting for a response. Nothing came.

"_Bridge, I'm not reading you. Am I getting through?_" A few of his men glanced over to their superior, overhearing the one-sided exchange.

"_Fuck, Hikowa, are you there?_"

* * *

"_-owa, are you there?_" the control console buzzed, muffled slightly by Hikowa's prone form draped over it. A pair of ragged holes were punched in his Navy RIG's chest, emerging through his back, proving instantly fatal injuries.

The entire bridge was pock-marked with bullet holes where the crewman that had stayed had made their last stand. Even the commander was among their numbers. Hikowa had met his fate whilst attempting to remain on the two remaining squad's lifelines.

The console clicked on again. A transmission from the _Ishimura_. Their communications interference had just been lifted, and their response to Hikowa's signal had finally come in. Too little too late.

"_USM Valor, this is Kendra Daniels on the USG Ishimura, come in! Do not open the escape pod. USM Valor, this is Kendra Daniels on the USG Ishimura, come in! Do not open the escape pod. Dammit, respond!_"

Charlie Bass and his men had killed the beast, but not before it had found its way to the bridge. And now the USM _Valor_ was flying blind directly towards the looming form of the USG _Ishimura_.

**Usual routine, read and review. Anonymous reviews are accepted, too. **


	2. Ghosts of Tanith

**Wow. Well, this was longer than I thought it would be. Not that that's a bad thing, really. As usual, completely unbeta'd and I can't be arsed to proofread, so enjoy the nice flashback. **

The bullet-riddled creature was clearly dead, but its corpse brought the Marines of Omega group little comfort. Gunnery Sergeant Bass couldn't hail Lieutenant Hikowa or Commander Cadigan, and Campbell's Beta team had already been wiped out alongside a group of civilians.

The Marines were clearly on edge. Two of their numbers were dead, reducing the team to ten strong. Bass would need to hold them together if he was to set up contact with the bridge, most likely meaning a trek through the darkened interior of the ship to the bow's command deck.

"Now word from bridge," Bass clicked his comm line shut, "And I doubt that it's a communications glitch. We're assuming the worst."

"The fuck does that mean?" McNeal half-laughed, half-snapped, before hastily adding a respectful, "Sir."

"It means," Bass slid a fresh clip into his pulse rifle and priming it, "That we're not out of the woods yet. We're assuming there could be more than one of these…" he gestured to the dead alien, "…things, and we're assuming contact with the bridge's been severed due to this thing getting there before it found us."

The Marines remained silent, glancing at one another, not sure how to react. They were dangerously close to the _Ishimura's_ location, and no helm meant that there was a chance they were on a collision course with the much larger vessel.

"Sir, with respect, we're practically opposite of the bridge," Dean put in, calling up a holographic scematic on his wrist-mounted computer, "Assuming we've been keeping steady speed since we last heard from the El-Tee, we're not gonna be able to get across the ship in time fast enough to change course."

"Yeah, if we climb the stairs and hoof it the whole way," McNeal shot back, "We've got gravlifts for a reason."

"We're assuming the worst, _Private_," Bass placed emphasis on the Marine's inferior rank, "That means no lifts. We'll confirm on our way, but we can't put all our money on the elevators working during an incursion like this."

"Fuck, gunny," McNeal shook his head, "When's there ever been an emergency procedure for anything like this?"

McNeal had a point. And it was a point Bass found himself unable to address.

* * *

Sergeant Jon Willis, incidentally, had the fortune of missing any form of encounter with the creature. His squad was at full strength, albeit a bit jumpy with all the noise coming over the Marine channels.

There was no response from the bridge when he called in to get a sit-rep. And Campbell's team was long since gone, leaving…

"Bass, you still with us?" he clicked open his comm, astonished he'd not contacted Bass earlier.

"_Good to hear your voice, Jon_," Bass' relieved voice came over the line. That wasn't a good sign. You had to be nervous before you could be relieved, and if something had spooked Charlie Bass, it was bad news.

"Likewise," Willis raised a closed fist, halting the squad's movement through an empty living quarters, "What's your status? I can't raise Hikowa, and I haven't run into this thing Cadigan warned us about."

"_Lucky you_," Bass replied somberly, "_We put it down for good. But it took DeStefano and Ripley with it. We're trying to get to the bridge by foot. Where're you?_"

"You're not gonna believe this," Willis smiled, his first stroke of luck this entire time, "We're about two hundred meters off from the bridge. We'll meet you there."

"_Best thing I've heard all day_," Bass replied, "_Just be sure to decelerate or adjust our course enough to avoid a collision with the Ishimura. Last time I was bridgeside, everything was marked so clearly you'd think the Corp thought our pilots had the memories of goldfish._"

"Roger that, Gunny," Willis nodded, waving his men up, "We're on it."

"That's one less thing to worry about," Bass closed the line, looking back to his assembled men.

"Sergeant Willis is practically at the bridge already. He'll make sure we're not about to crash. All we need to worry about is getting to the bow safely." There was a chorus of clicks and snaps as weapons were primed and safeties flicked off. After seeing what had happened to two of their number, they were prepared for the worst.

Bass pressed the glowing controls of the mess-hall door, thankful that it was still online as it slid upward. He paused as the comm indicator in his HUD flickered an urgent red. Incoming from Willis.

"Problems, Sergeant?" he opened the line, bringing up Willis' image on his wrist-computer as he did.

"_Brace for impact! We're too late!" _the sergeant shouted, his virtual head twisting quickly over his shoulder, "_Charlie! We're-_"

The communication abruptly cut to static, but prior to the breakup, over Willis' shoulder, Bass saw that the team had indeed reached the bridge. But what was urgently wrong was seen through the reinforced forward viewport: the looming form of the _Ishimura, _seconds away from impact.

"Brace! Impact coming!" Bass barked. There was a moment's hesitation, but the Marines dove for whatever tools to brace themselves they could. Perhaps a moment too late.

* * *

Willis and his team died in an instant, either by the virtue of being right at the point of impact, by secondary explosions, or being sucked out of the ship's broken hull by the ensuing vacuum.

Bass and his team fared marginally better. The loss of the bridge and the massive impact with the much-larger planet cracker had caused a massive loss of power throughout the ship, shutting down many of even the emergency lights.

The newly opened door slammed downward, crushing PFC Janick's waist under its immense weight and momentum. The room turned on its side, sending the contents of the mess hall hurtling towards the squad. A massive table, freed of its bolts on the floor, struck and crushed the ribcage of PFC Moll. The bones meant to protect his internal organs broke inward, shredding his heart and lungs. The impact dampeners of the armor were tough, but not tough enough for several tons of plasteel focused on a fairly small location.

Bass had been through the door by the time of impact, as had Sherman, Dean, Kaczynski, and Chen. Janick had been halfway through when the impact sent the door crushing downward, pinning the now screaming Marine under its multi-ton bulk.

McNeal, Wallace, and Jones remained on the other side, with the bodies of Janick and Moll. Or rather, the body of Moll. Janick was still, unfortunately for him, very much alive and conscious. His suit had already administered an autoinjection of morphine, doing some to dull the pain, but not nearly enough.

"Shit!" McNeal grabbed hold of the base of the door, suspended by Janick's torso,  
"Gunny! Fuck!"

"Calm down, Private," Bass shot back, this time with none of the emphasis of his previous use of the title, "Grab hold of the door. Lift with me on three. Alright?"

The trio on McNeal's side and the five on Bass' side grabbed hold of the door, nodding a quick count of three before lifting as one, trying to raise the door off Janick. It rose just a little, but not nearly enough to remove the barrier between the two groups.

"Keep it up!" McNeal cried out, grabbing hold of Janick's legs, "Just a few seconds longer!" He pulled the wounded Marine, eliciting new screams of agony as he tore already damaged muscles. But Janick's head cleared the door just before the weight broke through the strength of the Marines, sending it crashing down to the floor.

The walls were easily soundproof, but assuming the radio sets still worked, the two groups would never be out of earshot. Bass opened his computer screen, punching in the team frequency.

"McNeal, you hear me?"

"_Yeah, no problem_," McNeal's helmeted head appeared onscreen, "_We didn't lose anything in that door, but Doc says Janick's looking bad. If we can't get him evac soon, he might not pull through._"

Bass cursed. In a way, wounded men were a worse burden on a unit than dead men. Dead men didn't require medical attention, and they didn't slow down the group.

Why was he thinking like that? He'd never been that callous with his men. He shook his head to clear it, then came out with his plan of action.

"Alright," Bass finally said, "Have Jones do what he can to keep Janick stable. We'll do what we can to get contact with the _Ishimura_. They're bound to have medical facilities we can use until the Corp can get us a real medivac."

"Can't we just radio for one now?" Dean asked, shifting nervously as he looked down the opposite end of the darkened hallway, "We might as well assure they're en route before we risk contact with the _Ishimura_."

"Unfortunately, that's impossible," Bass shook his head, "We've only got our short-range comms, and the long-range gear was all in the bridge. And unless I'm wrong, the bridge just got crushed like a tin can."

"_Fuck_," McNeal swore, "_Gunny…just do what you can. And get back soon. I feel like we're being watched already._"

Bass didn't want to admit it, but McNeal had a point. The red emergency lights had come back on, bathing them all in the eerie glow. But it wasn't just that: from the corners of his eyes, Bass felt like there was always a darting figure, eluding his gaze just before he could track it.

"Of course," he nodded, "Check in every ten minutes. I don't want any more surprises. Or any more dead Marines."

Private Jared Wallace twisted a lever on the side of his M31 'Grinder' heavy machine gun, deploying the magnetic shaft on the underside, letting it bond to the deck floor with a metallic _thunk_. Another flip of a switch, and the safety was off. He pressed the button atop the molded grip, letting the three-barrels build in speed for a few seconds before coming to a halt. One second of windup, and the trigger under his index finger would send high-caliber shells racing at any target he chose at 3000 rounds per minute.

"_Don't worry about it, Gunny_," Wallace widened the range of his HUD's motion tracker, "_Nothing's getting to us without the Widowmaker having a first say_."

Bass's twelve-man team had been reduced to five in operation: him, Dean, Sherman Kaczynski, and Chen. That left them with three pulse rifles, a shotgun, and a Grinder. It was only a stroke of luck that they had the diversity of firepower, albeit significantly reduced from the team's original numbers.

Joseph Dean felt ill at ease with the silence that surrounded the team. He'd never quite fully appreciated the perpetual hum of machinery, life support systems, or ventilation. It always generated a white noise that overlaid all activity aboard the _Valor_.

Now, that noise was gone, as the _Valor_ reverted to minimal power expenditure. The only sounds to break the near perpetual silence were the footsteps of the squad, echoing metallic taps without even squad chatter to add to it.

Occasionally they'd pass a vital system buried somewhere in the walls, still running due to whatever priority it received over the better part of the ship's functions. Dean found himself hoping for something to break up the unnerving monotony. That feeling lasted until he remembered the dead alien that had killed two of their men in a heartbeat.

Stanislaus Kaczynski and William Sherman, on the other hand, were used to warfare that was hard on the mind. They'd been in Bass' force during the outbreak on Tanith. They had been two of thirty Marines assigned to help local police forces put down a series of riots in their capitol city.

The mission was a massive coverup. And with good reason. It was the reason Bass had been demoted from Master Sergeant, and probably the reason they'd been stuck on the _Valor_ ever since.

**Tanith, three years ago**

Kaczynski double-checked his compact submachine gun, ensuring that the clip he slid into the receiver was marked with a blue stripe and not a red. He'd wished he had his M31, but this mission was helping but down a riot, not creating a bloodbath. His primary tool was a six-barreled grenade launcher loaded with teargas and sonic shells. The gas had been around for ages, but the sonic rounds were something new. They put out an ultrahigh frequency that disrupted the chemical balances of the brain and inner-ear, generally resulting in sudden nausea, dizziness, and general incapacitation.

His submachine gun was a secondary weapon, loaded with stun rounds instead of live ammunition. He had a bandolier of grenade shells strung across his light body armor, four clips of stun rounds, and a single magazine of live ammunition, complete with a locking seal on the top to prevent accidental loading and firing.

Sherman was lucky in regards to weaponry. His Pancor Jackhammer autoshotgun could receive the rubber-pellet filled stunshells. Like the submachine gun, the shotgun was considered, bizarrely enough, a last resort, to be used only in the event of the tear gas or sonic grenades failed to quell the crowds.

The two soldiers sat alongside one another in the first of three armored personnel carriers that rolled into the eerily quiet streets of the Tanith capitol Uskar. There was evidence of rioting in the broken windows at streetlevel as well as the abandoned and vandalized cars that the APCs occasionally had to swerve to miss.

This was a public relations mission for the Marines more than anything else. Kaczynski and the other thirty-odd Marines were wearing just their camouflage fatigues, boots, and basic chest plates under their tactical vests. They looked like something out of the twentieth century, and all because some desk jockey thought the Grim Reaper-like visage provided by their standard Level Six Combat RIGs were a bit too 'frightening' to be inspiring when the Marines were shown helping their allies in the police force.

If anything were a greater testament to the PR-heavy nature of this mission, it was the suit that the Marines were forced to babysit for the duration of the trip. He was a short, nervous man named Mr. Lee, wearing a pale suit with an integrated RIG. Most of the Marines treated him with polite indifference or…hostile indifference.

Mr. Lee spent the better part of the trip sweating in the climate controlled APC, wiping his brow with a monogrammed handkerchief. He asked questions. Far too many questions for any of the Marines' liking. The ones with audio players were already putting in wireless earbuds to avoid questioning. Those that didn't either tried to talk with one another, pretend to sleep, or feign a war-related deafness.

Master Sergeant Charlie Bass was given command over the Marine strike force, but it wasn't meant to be anything. Command was just giving the job to Bass to pad his already impressive record. Not that Bass needed any of that. He'd proved his worth countless times before.

Bass sat just behind the driver, pulling the intercom from the wall of the APC. It was a line wired to the other two troops carriers, ensuring that he could give orders to his men without having to rely on the communications setup normally found in their combat RIGs.

"Alright, boys and girls, the Uskar PD has been spamming us with a distress signal for about a week now," Bass spoke into the receiver, "They're having trouble dealing with some civil unrest, and we're the fixer for that problem."

"Top, if we're here for the riots, why's this place a ghost town?" one Marine put in.

"No idea, soldier," he shrugged, "We're nearly police headquarters. I can only assume this is the eye of the storm. Speaking of which…" He glanced out one of the viewports, finally seeing the battered exterior of the Uskar PD. It was pockmarked with holes of varying sources, and had a few broken windows, not to mention a good few burns from what were probably Molotov cocktails.

"Looks like there was rioting after all," Bass muttered to himself, then raised his voice again, "Alright, we're good to go. Set up a watch around the area. I don't want any surprises until we know the situation from the branch chief."

The rear hatches of the APCs swung down as the multi-ton vehicles ground to a halt outside the department building. The Marines were still largely at ease. Not only were there no visible threats, there were no visible _anything_. There wasn't even a stereotypical tumbleweed to blow down the street.

Three men in dusty police uniforms walked through the sliding doors on the station's front. They'd been invisible behind the polarized glass before stepping out. Remarkably, the impact-resistant glass had been able to hold up during whatever siege the station had undergone.

"I'll handle this," Mr. Lee slunk past Bass before the Master Sergeant had a chance to voice an objection. He extended a hand towards the man in the middle of the formation, who'd stepped ahead of the other two.

"My name is Edmund Lee, Captain," he put on an industry-honed grin as the police captain raised his own hand, "It's a pleasure to mee-"

Concealed almost entirely in the captain's hand was a small handgun, and archaic slug-thrower that still used cased rounds. The round entered through Lee's right eye, by the bridge of his nose, scrambling his brains as the small-caliber bullet ricocheted around in his skull.

"Whoa!" the nearest Marine cried out, reaching for his sidearm in lieu of his slung primary weapon. One of the other two officers lashed out, catching the Marine's throat in a flash of silver.

The razor-edged knife cut open the Marine's windpipe, eliciting a choked gurgle as the wound spurted blood. He staggered backward, only for the officer to swing his arm again, this time punching through the Marine's left temple. The blade came away slick with blood and gray matter just as Kaczynski fired his grenade launcher, loaded with a tear-gas round.

He was only five meters away, firing in a straight line with a weapon intended to deliver its ammunition nearly three hundred meters away. The forty-millimeter round struck the man's forehead squarely in the center, whipping his head back with a sickening snap.

A veritable swarm of stun rounds blasted the captain off his feet, probably breaking ribs and covering him with a tapestry of bruises. But even under the sustained barrage, he still tried to force himself to his feet. Bass contributed to the volley himself, close enough now to see the madness in the captain's eyes, like a rabid animal.

One of those eyes caught a stun round. It was one of the few places on the human body that the rounds could prove lethal even at medium range. He dropped as if he'd been cold-cocked with one of the impact-absorbing rounds imbedded in his brain.

Three Marines had managed to subdue and zip-strip the third officer after wrestling the box-cutter from his iron grip. But even the riotcuffs were having trouble holding his wrists together. He foamed at the mouth as he thrashed under the weight of two of the Marines, finally dropping into unconsciousness as one slammed the butt of his gun into the back of the officer's head.

Kaczynski was still trying to make sense of the of the sudden turn of events as a electronic chirp sounded from his computer. All around him, similar sounds sounded from soldier after soldier. Kaczynski was the first to check for the origin, finding it to stem from the motion tracker.

"Jesus Christ!" one of the perimeter guards shouted as he made a grab for his submachine gun, "Master Sergeant, we've got-" The whine of a high-energy weapon cut through the air, followed by a concentrated blast of energy that tore off the unfortunate Marine's head and one of his shoulders.

"Hostile fire!" Bass roared over the ensuing din, "Cover!" The blast had emanated from the second floor of the office building beside the police station. The Marine response sent a storm of stun rounds to the point of origin, breaking what windows remained but failing to produce any substantial results.

At least a dozen of the Marines cursed the stun rounds in their weapons, reaching for the red-labeled clips. Bass noticed the movement with a growing sense of alarm.

"No live rounds!" Bass shouted, "We need to-"

"Top!" Kaczynski grabbed Bass' attention, "Tracker's are going crazy. It's the buildings. They're swarming with movement."

This was supposed to be a peacekeeping mission, geared to deal with civil disobedience by unorganized civilians, at best. How was an ambush by men armed with energy weapons possible?

Another blast of energy struck one of the three APCs. If Bass had to wager a guess, he'd think it was some kind of anti-tank weapon. Not much else could cut through the reactive armor to breach the fuel cell within.

The blast that ensued as a result of the ruptured fuel cell claimed the six Marines who'd taken cover behind it, wounding another two with shrapnel.

A line of energy blasts rippled from the surrounding buildings, this time on the ground floor, mixed in with a larger number of ballistic firearms. Several more Marines went down, most of whom stood back up thanks to their body armor.

"Fall back to the station!" Bass spoke into his radio gear, reaching all his remaining Marines, "The Bradley's aren't safe! Get inside the HQ!" The Marines, to their credit, responded immediately with the swiftness that spoke volumes of their professionalism. But even as the Marines moved to the comparative safety of the police station, the ground levels of the surrounding buildings began to swarm with newly emerged men and women, wearing a mixture of plainclothes and civilian RIGs.

Worse than the swarms was the hodge-podge of weaponry that bristled from their ranks. Even worse than that was the look of madness in the eyes of each and every member of the mob. And there had to be hundreds of them, in the first wave alone.

Bass fired his sidearm into the controls of the lobby door, sealing them with a pneumatic hiss of the reinforced glass. Chips flew off as the front of the building held against the firestorm of small arms. Bass hoped that it would hold out long enough for command to get their distress signal.

Once inside, the Marines found the better part of the ground floor stripped of its contents, save for interspersed desks and broken cubicle walls. The men went swiftly about overturning desks and propping up walls, making as much makeshift cover as they could in what little time they had.

Kaczynski made certain that his grenade launcher was loaded with three tear gas shells and three sonics. He had no idea what was going on, but he was beginning to doubt their ability to qwell the crowd. He crouched behind a flipped desk, alongside Sherman, who was in the process of feeding live shells into his Jackhammer. Kaczynski decided to follow suite with his submachine gun, slipping in his one clip of live ammunition. Damned mission had left him with no extra clips. The same was true for most of the other Marines. A prolonged firefight would spell death against the hundreds opening fire on front of the building.

"Command, operation's become a complete Charlie Foxtrot. We've taken multiple casualties, to a foe with access to energy-based ordinence, and we're dramatically outnumbered. Requesting immediate reinforcements and evac." Bass waited for a response, but none came.

"Command, can you read me?" At least this time there was static, but still no response.

"Command, we can't-" His last attempt at contact was disrupted by another screaming blast of energy, this time sweeping across the reinforced glass front of the police HQ. The glass was rated against blunt force, flames, and even small arms fire. But amongst the crowd, there was at least one C99 Supercollider Contact Beam mining laser. A weapon that could shatter stone like glass had no trouble breaking through the APC's armor, and it had no problem at all breaking the glass.

Bass shielded his eyes from the exploding glass, with his men following suite. But their forearms weren't anything near sufficient to stop the flood of handgun and rifle fire that followed in the wake of the removal of the protecting barrier.

Kaczynski fired off a teargas shell, as did the other launcher-equipped Marines. The 40mm rounds hit pavement, pouring out gouts of white gas. Any other crowd would have been incapacitated or forced to flee in the face of the burning gas. This crowd was far beyond normality.

They charged straight through the cloud, into the headquarters atrium. Staggered by stun rounds or blinded by the gas, they stumbled onward, forming a new wall from their own fallen numbers.

Sherman was firing live ammo, as were several other Marines. His shotgun shells blew bloody holes in charging rioters, but each shot brought him closer to the bottom of his limited supply of magnum shells. The rubber pellets practically worthless at anything other than point-blank range, and by that point, he might as well use his knife and not have to load his gun with useless shells.

Kaczynski switched from the grenade launcher to his submachine gun, firing it as effectively in small bursts as he could. He missed his Grinder more than ever, particularly the automatic fire and copious ammunition it provided.

Bass' Divot handgun boomed, putting a hole between a charging civilian's eyes. By this point, the lives of his men mattered more than those of a crowd of Mogadishu imitators. Except the Rangers in Somalia knew what they were getting into. They certainly didn't end up fighting against enemies better equipped than they were.

"Gunny, we can't hold out here!" Private Batista fired off a pair of shots from his own handgun before returning to his cover beside Bass, "They've got more bodies than we've got bullets!"

Bass hated to admit it, but Batista was right. The Marines may have been holding their own for the time being, but their makeshift cover was only useful against very small-caliber ballistic weapons. One of the men made it far enough to raise his weapon and fire off a blast of white-hot plasma at Lance Corporal Phelps, burning a hole through his chest and neck, instantly bypassing his body armor.

_That was a plasma cutter_, Bass realized, _They've got goddamn __**mining**__ tools. _The city must have either had a stockpile somewhere, or a shipment had been passing through the city at the time of the riot's commencement.

"_Mas…Bass, we've receiv…einforcements on their way…one hour,_" the radio cracked to life, but rife with static. If Bass understood properly, reinforcements were nearly an hour off.

"Negative, HQ!" Bass shouted over the gunfire, "That's an hour we don't have! We need support, and we need it fast!"

"_Rog…Bass. Raptor flight is inbo…rike coordinates Xray, Tw..two, Niner. Confirm?_"

The N99 Raptor was the primary attack aircraft of the Marine Corp, capable of supersonic flight, air-to-air combat, and strafing runs of both static and mobile ground targets. Their four plasma cannons could slag rock and burn through the toughest of armor.

Of course, an obvious problem, as with any air support, was the need for coordinates before a successful strike. And with this bizarre interference playing hell with their electronics…it might be causing similar problems with the Raptors.

"Command, confirm attack coordinates!" panic crept into Bass voice as the idea dawned on him. The Raptors would be delivering their ordinance over the course of less than a second. The pilots relied heavily on the coordinates they were fed. And in close-quarters like these, what had initially seemed to be a Broken Arrow airstrike could drop attack right on his men's heads.

The scream of the Raptors filled the air, covering even the noise of gunfire and laser blasts. Bass shouted an order to find better cover, but the sun-bright flash already filled the streets, and there was little cover to be had, regardless.

The blast turned the better part of the teeming mob into ash in an instant. The strike hadn't been called in right on the Marine's location, but it was close enough to still yield disastrous results.

As it was, there were sixteen Marines still fighting, with an additional three incapacitated from injuries. The superheated air blasted through the station, catching those who were unfortunate enough to be close enough to the lethal plasma discharge.

Batista had popped back up to fire again even as Bass gave the order to stay down. He stared in awe as a supernova of white-hot plasma exploded before him. The blast's was more than enough to cook the unfortunate Marine's brain in his skull, splitting his cranium like an eggshell as gray matter bubbled out.

Bass's mind locked up as the mutilated corpse toppled over. He'd wanted standard gear, on-site medivac, a secure op zone. Anything that would have planned for the worst. Instead, his caution was deemed 'costly and unnecessary.' But Bass'd be damned if he could ever put a price on any of the men that he'd lost.

Obviously, Bass made it out alive. Kaczynski and Sherman, too. They lived to face their current predicament, but they were among the few that did. The blast was far too close, and too many of the Marines hadn't gotten the word to take cover.

Eight other men made it out alive. Of them, two died shortly thereafter of their injuries from the deadly mining tools-turned weapons. Private Morris had lost his sight when the blast went off directly in his line of sight, burning his retinas and ending his military career. Two more suffered burns sufficient to require skin grafts.

The political fallout would have been disastrous. Mass civilian fatalities, an ensuing investigation of all involved, and the usual protests. It seemed like no one cared about honoring the dead Marines. They only cared about crucifying the live ones.

Bass was summarily demoted to Gunnery Sergeant, and a few spooks from Naval Intelligence had implied an additional mountain of red tape for him _and_ the survivors should Bass do anything less than complete cooperation with the investigation.

But at least the men in black came to Bass behind closed doors. The media didn't have that same courtesy. Gunnery Sergeant Bass became the face of looming military fascism, a neo-Gestapo who dropped an airstrike on civilian protesters. Their descriptions were not that specific, of course, but the hundreds of deaths were all blamed on his negligence.

His assignment to the USM _Valor_ was meant to take him out of the public eye. It was little more than damage control, a sleepy assignment for him and his remaining men to placate them. It had worked, too, at least for a time. The _Valor_'s crew patrolled a system outside of legal space. The only ships they ran into had malfunctioning navigation systems, or were small-time smuggling operations trying to escape government eye.

Tanith was a disaster, but Bass was encouraged to put it behind him, at least as well as he could. It was easy to forget something that seemed so unbelievable. Billions of credits in damage, nearly an entire platoon dead, and…mass insanity. There was no other way to explain the bloodlust that gripped the thousands of dead civilians. It could have been a cover up for some sort of chemical leak, a biological agent that had gotten out into the general populace.

But in all honesty, any cloak and dagger explanation would have done. Something to justify men and women turning into animals. And something to justify all the men he left behind in Tanith.

* * *

"Gunny?" Dean spoke up, "What're we doing?" Bass reentered the present, calling up a three dimensional image of the _Valor_ lit by red, yellow, and green lights. The image should have been all green, or at least it would be when the destroyer was undamaged. Yellow indicated minimal to moderate damage, while red was reserved for critical or completely crippling states. Bass took somewhat morbid comfort in the fact that not _every_ section was lit a deep red.

"Alright, we're here," he blew up the corridor on the schematic, "Collision took out most of the bow, with heavy breaches in the hull. Some areas are too crushed to transverse, and most have lost atmosphere."

Chen, meanwhile, was idly spinning a morphine syringe in the fingers of his left hand. It was a nervous habit that characterized the medic, but Bass knew he could count on him in a pinch. He and Jones were good at their jobs, and it was pure luck that the surviving members of Omega team had a medic on each side of the door. Å

"We can't count on continued life support," Kaczynski noted, "What's the status of the lifeboats?"

"No good," Bass shook his head, "One, three, and four are disabled."

"Two and five?" Kaczynski followed up.

"No idea, really," Bass shifted the schematic again, "Looks like they broke off on impact."

"Up the creek, then, Gunny?" Sherman propped his Jackhammer against his shoulder, "No way off, and clock's ticking on the air supply."

"Not true," Bass raised his index finger, "We've got one way out, but I doubt you're gonna like it."

"_Anything's better than here, Gunny_," McNeal's voice came over the radio, "_What's the call_?"

"Simple enough," Bass took a moment to highlight a largely undamaged route, then open a new ship hologram, "We're going ahead as planned, and going to board the _Ishimura_."

**Done reading? Cool. Drop a review. Doesn't matter if you're registered or not, but doing so certainly makes responding to questions and such easier. Let's see who can catch the chapter reference, too.  
**


	3. Feet First into Hell

**Whew. Loooong time since last update. Hopefully, I'll have a few more out at a faster pace. Also editing a few typos/continuity errors in previous chapters, in the event that you decide to just start from the beginning rather than trying to remember who everyone is.**

"_Regular check-in_," McNeal's voice crackled over Bass' radio, "_No change since last call. Janick's stable, but Doc's burning morphine like no tomorrow keeping him from going into shock._"

"Alright. We're trying to reach a possible exit in L-Block," Gunnery Sergeant Bass replied, keeping his attention focused down the dimly lit hallway, "Schematics say it's intact, and we should be able to blow it open if need be."

"_Any contact from the Ishimura?_" this time, it was Jones, the medic left with the three others trapped behind the mess hall door.

"Nothing yet," Bass admitted reluctantly, "Switch to open channels. It's not like we're trying to be secretive here, and if they pick up our transmissions, they might try to make contact themselves."

"Too quiet," Dean tightened his grip on his pulse rifle, "If the _Ishimura_'s dealing with the same thing that got onboard the _Valor_, they should have been spitting out signals for assistance when they picked us up in the first place."

"We're assuming they lost their comm capabilities, presumably before they put out the distress beacon," Bass justified the silence, "Besides, there's plenty of debris around to mess with short-range comms. We'll be in contact distance soon."

"If anyone's around to talk to," Sherman muttered.

"Stow that," Kaczynski shot back with uncustomary hostility to his friend, "Gunny says there're plenty of reasons not to hear the crew or the colonists, and Gunny's word is law."

"Shit," Sherman shook his head as his vision began to cloud, clearing his eyes, "I'm just trying to make sense of all this. Sorry, Kat. You too, Gunny. Didn't mean to question you."

"It's fine," Bass punched open the override commands for another sealed bulkhead door, "This isn't what any of us were trained for, and that…thing," he couldn't come up with a more suitable word for the monster that they'd killed, "Well, it makes Tanith seem like a memory of better days."

"Tanith?" Dean looked between Sherman and Bass. Bass was slightly surprised the PFC hadn't heard of the fiasco, but then again, Dean was from one of the outer colonies. It wasn't uncommon for them to miss key happenings in other parts of human space.

"I'll tell you about it when we're sharing a round back on Earth. On me, of course," Bass managed a small smile, even if his squadmates couldn't see it. It still put them at visible ease, and that was essential: in a hostile environment with the massive unknown that was the alien grating on their nerves, one of the squad snapping under the pressure could be worse for them than any number of obvious hostiles.

"One sec, Gunny," Kaczynski let the mechanical support arm of his Grinder take the better part of the weapon's weight as he fished through his supplies with a now-free hand, "Popping a stim. With respect, we could all probably use one."

"Good idea," Bass looked at Sherman, Dean, and Chen, "Take a second to shoot up. We're not much good if we can't stay sharp." Kaczynski was the first to insert the small plexiglass vial into his suit's auto-injector, sending the potent concoction directly into his carotid artery to speed its spread.

Bass let the momentary rush fade, counting off thirty seconds to let the desired effects take hold. The stimulants, nicknamed 'stims' or 'stimpacks' by the Marines, was designed in light of what the men in R&D called 'human weakness.' Marines were equipped with the best weapons and body armor available short of prototypes, and a few scientists had noticed that even the minor gene-boosts given to the enlisted men of the Corp weren't enough to ensure that a few millennia-old weaknesses of the human body wouldn't interfere with operation of said equipment.

Thus, stimpacks were developed. They were exclusively for usage in a combat environment where sleep was not an option, sharpening senses and staving off hunger and exhaustion for hours. There was a .01% chance of a bodily addiction to the substance, but that number was deemed low enough to be acceptable for widespread use.

Bass waited for a confirmation from each man that enough time had elapsed, then passed through the previously closed door. They were getting close to the seal for the escape pod Bass had designated, not because it was still intact or usable, but because (if the schematics were right) it offered a route into the _Ishimura_.

"Alright…" Bass held up a closed fist, bringing the four other men to a stop as he summoned the holographic image of the _Valor_'s floorplan, "Bridge is about twenty meters that way," he nodded in the respective direction, "And pod two should be right about here."

Sure enough, the escape pod's doors were sealed, indicating that it had long since launched, but if the impact report was right, by prying the door open, they should have a clear path right into the _Ishimura_.

"On it, Gunny," Sherman drew out what resembled a compact caulk gun, "We'll be in faster than-"

"Wait," Bass placed a staying hand on Sherman's shoulder, looking around the red-lit interior of the corridor. Kaczynski had seen that look enough to know that the Gunnery Sergeant thought something was amiss.

"What is it, chief?" Kaczynski took the initiative and broke the silence. Bass waited a moment, then shook his head and took his hand off Sherman's shoulder.

"It's nothing. Just get that door open." Sherman shrugged and set about running a thin line of clear 'caulk' down the length of the pod's access door. It was slower and weaker than a breeching charge, but the corrosive ooze would burn its way through the thin door without risking a hull breech as surely as a welder's torch. That, and the team didn't have any breeching charges. Bass considered himself lucky that Sherman even had the tool with him.

But he was still ill at ease by the environment. Something was…off, but for the life of him, he couldn't see what it was. He dismissed the feeling as nervousness as Sherman trigged the goo, igniting it in a bright glow that automatically caused their helmets to further darken their eyepieces.

Even if he couldn't pin it down, Bass was right. Something _was_ wrong. Sergeant Willis had been at approximately this location at the time of the collision. But despite most of the team being killed on impact, their bodies were nowhere to be seen.

The caustic substance continued to burn through the door, paving the way to the _Ishimura_. But if Bass had known what had become of those bodies, a lesser man might've drawn his sidearm and ended his own life then and there to save himself from facing the monstrosities to come.

* * *

"Hear that?" Private Wallace and 'doc' Jones both tensed, shooting glares at McNeal. Jones' gloves were still bloody from tending to Janick, and Wallace was short-tempered as it was. Neither was in the mood for false alarms.

"Don't look at me like that," McNeal added, "I know what I-"

A loud _clang_ erased any doubts any of the Marines might've had. All of their guns toward the mess hall's opposite doorway. A scratching on the other side only further wracked their nerves. Wallace thumbed the safety of the Grinder and let it wind up. McNeal's shotgun was long since primed.

The scratching stopped. The only sound was the low hum of the Grinder's spinning barrels. A few seconds more, and Wallace released the first of the two triggers. The normally quiet sound had become deafening in the silence. Janicked groaned from his prone position, and Jones was swift to stifle the sound.

"Maybe it's-" McNeal stopped as a clatter stole the trio's attention, this time up to the bullet-addled air vent. It was a slow, stumbling, not like the quick movements of the creature lying dead in the center of the room. It grew louder, echoing through the rupture in the vent.

"Hold fire," Jones whispered, drawing his sidearm and adding it to the arrayed firepower, "Wait for it to fall."

The noise stopped, and a pained groan leaked from the vent before an armored body tumbled from the hole and flopped to the ground. McNeal fired off one panicked shell, but Jones shoved the Jackhammer's barrel away in time to allow it to miss. The sergeant's stripes on the shoulder pauldron and the decal of a pair of crossed shotguns was enough to jog recognition.

"Don't shoot!" he shouted, racing to the prone form, "It's Campbell!"

"Fucking hell," McNeal fought back a rising nausea, "Almost shot the sarge."

"Sergeant!" Jones jostled the prone, bloody form, "Come on, sarge, answer me!" Campbell was in terrible condition, with his armor ruptured in numerous places and coated in blood, some of it probably not his own. Jones turned back to McNeal, snapping his fingers and reaching out with his free hand.

"McNeal, gimme my kit!" he hissed, "He's a goddamn mess!" McNeal let his weapon hang from its strap as he fumbled for the medical kit beside Janick. Jones struggled to turn Campbell onto his back. His RIG was unlit, but from the damage to his suit, it was understandable for it to be offline.

"Stay with me, sarge," he murmured, unsealing Campbell's helmet and pulling it off, "It'll be…fine."

Jones trailed off as the words died in his mouth. Half the flesh melted like putty, hairless, and fanged…there was no way this _thing_ was Sergeant Brian Campbell.

But worse were its eyes…focusing directly on him as its fanged mouth let out an inhuman scream.

Jones died as a razor-edged spine tore itself from the creature's arm and decapitated him. His body swayed a moment, pumping blood from its neck to a head that wasn't there, then collapsed onto the creature.

McNeal was frozen in shock. The creature jittered with newfound quickness, thrashing at the body to right itself. Jones' head had barely hit the ground when Wallace slammed both firing studs of the Grinder.

In the agonizing second of windup, the creature was already up, free of the weight of Jones' body, and lunged. But by then, the Grinder spoke.

A banshee wail combined with the deafening thunder accompanied the storm of death that spewed from the multi-barreled weapon. The Campbell-creature was hurled backward as if hit by a train, smashed against the wall as the high-caliber rounds blew it apart.

Wallace only released his grip after a full ten seconds of sustained fire. Hundreds of pockmarks surrounded the body, and little was left of it above the waist except for a few vertebrae. The rest was scattered around the body, nothing but shards of armor and chunks of meat.

The pounding on the door resumed again, this time louder. More clattering from the vent, this time in unbroken sections across the mess hall. Razor-sharp claws tore through the metal like scissors through paper, and the unpowered door began to tremble as it was forced upward.

"Contacts!" Wallace shouted into his radio, unleashing another salvo onto one of the ventilation ducts. A screech of pain followed, and blood dribbled onto the floor through the new holes.

"Repeat, contacts!" No reply from Bass and his squad, if they were even still around to hear him. Wallace frantically refocused the Grinder's sights, killing another creature that had gotten halfway through a new hole in the vent. This one was like Campbell: wearing Marine armor, with the familiar decals of Alpha squad.

McNeal was still paralyzed. In an instant, Jones was dead, and now, they were killing monsters wearing the skins of their fellow soldiers. What in God's name was happening here?

"Goddamnit, McNeal, _shoot them!_"

**R&R, the usual deal.**


	4. No Good Deed

**Here we go, Chapter 4. Working on another story based in the _Bioshock_ universe, so I'll be dividing my attention between that and this for at least a few days. **

"Private, repeat last," Bass waited for a reply. A transmission tagged with Wallace's name returned, but was nothing but white noise. Bass cursed. The last thing he needed right now was to lose contact with the other half of his squad. They were paused in one of the better-lit corridors, but aside from a few bloodstains on the metal floors, they'd not run into anyone living or dead.

"Gunny, I don't like this," Kaczynski spoke up, "Not like fear, but this place is just…wrong."

"No shit," Sherman snorted, a hint of nervousness tainting his cocksure remark, "No one to be seen, not even bodies. 'Course shit's wrong here."

"Not like that," Kaczynski shook his head, "This place just feels _wrong_."

"Thank God," Chen breathed a sigh of relief, "You feel that, too?"

"I'm not seeing it," Sherman shrugged, "Can you be any less vague?"

"There's this buzzing, like static," Chen looked over his shoulder, as if afraid someone other than the squad was listening, "It's there until I try and listen to it, then…nothing."

"You gonna be alright, Chen?" Bass abandoned the radio efforts, tilting his chin to the medic, "I need us all sharp for this. We're in deeper shit than we even knew existed."

"I'll be fine, Gunny," Chen sighed, cradling his rifle, taking comfort in the potential power it had, "Just…just need a second."

"Take two," Bass smiled, then looked to Dean, "How about you, kid?"

Dean had never liked the nickname bestowed on him as the least experienced of the Omegas, but now it was oddly comforting. There was a paternal undertone in Bass' voice that reminded him of his father, long since deceased back on Earth.

"Just fine, sir," he nodded. Bass slapped him on the shoulder.

"Good man. Kat? You doing alright?" Kaczynski was staring aimlessly at a spot on a wall, unfocused, but shook himself back at his name.

"No problem, Gunny. Ready when you are," he adjusted the auto-stabilizer hooked up to the Grinder that took the majority of the weapon's sizable bulk. Sherman seemed fine as it was, and Chen had straightened up and turned to Bass for further orders.

"Alright. We keep moving, primary goal is to find a functioning lifeboat. Once that's secured, we get it back to the _Valor_, pick up Jones and his crew, and hightail it back to friendly space," Bass stated, double checking his weapon and smiling inwardly as his squad did the same, "If we find anyone on our way, we find out whatever we can about these things. Don't use your suit's independent air supply, but keep the filters on. Whatever made these ugly SOBs could be viral."

The men glanced at one another nervously. They'd not stopped to try and guess what had made the creature onboard the _Valor_, but its semblance to a human was enough to assume what it once had been.

A high-pitched whine of discharging energy turned all their attention down the corridor. Blue light glowed around the corner, and a howl followed with a second blue discharge. A heavy, dark form thudded to the ground just within their line of sight. Bass' helmet automatically adjusted for the darkness, and was able to make out what it was.

Like the creature aboard the _Valor_, it had arms ending in long spines, and bore a terrifying semblance to a human, even if its inhuman nature was obvious. Its body was gone from the waist-down, but it lifted its head with terrifying vitality and screamed at whatever had reduced it to that condition. It was bathed in blue light for a moment before a bright beam of energy tore off its head and burned away most of its chest. Only then did it slump, finally dead.

"EDF Marine Corp!" Bass barked, amplifying his shout through his helmet speakers, "Show yourself!" The squad kept their weapons trained down the corridor. A scant ten meters separated them from the curve, and whoever (or _what_ever) was around it. Each man moved to whatever cover the alcoves of the hall offered.

"The Corp?" a distinctly male (and more importantly, human) voice shouted back, unconvinced, "You shittin' me?"

"Come out and see. We're standing down, just come out slow," Bass raised a hand signal as he did: stay ready. Shoot to kill if hostile.

"Alright, hang on," a metallic scraping followed, and a figure limped into view. He was wearing a crewman's RIG, albeit one in terrible shape, and the scraping came from the metal exo-brace on his left leg. A bloody bandage was wrapped around his thigh, but the motor at the knee of the brace was letting off the occasional spark and was locked in place.

Beside the injury, he was a giant of a man, easily as bulky as any of the Marines in their armor, though his worn face and gray buzz-cut suggested he was on the wrong side of middle age. Most interesting was his right arm: missing from below the elbow, but replaced with an obvious prosthetic. On Earth, higher-tier limb replacements could resemble the original limp with a coating of synthskin, or a porcelain-clean replica. This one was darkened metal, built for hardiness, not elegance, and the pistons that operated his fingers twitched like a spider's legs when he raised a hand to them.

"Maker's blood, I didn't think anyone was coming," he chuckled grimly, "You lot got evac?"

"Not yet," Bass waved down his squad's weapons and approached the man, "One of these…things," he gestured to the corpse, "Got aboard our ship. Took out the bridge and docked us as smoothly as a clockwork assfuck."

"Shit," the man muttered, "So we're stuck here?"

"That depends," Bass replied, "We boarded to try and find a way off from here. Is anything intact?"

"Fucked if I know," the man shrugged, propping himself against a wall to take weight off his leg, "We lost escape pods before all this shit went down, and the hangar's a long way off. Not even sure if anything's working there."

"Won't know until we try," Bass extended a hand, "Gunnery Sergeant Bass, by the way."

"No shit," the man laughed, shaking the outstrentched hand heartily as his prosthetic clacked with the motion, "From the Charlie Foxtrot back on Tanith, right?" Bass only grunted a reply, but it was enough of an affirmative.

"Don't mean to bring up old wounds," he added, "Hell, I was with Tanith's PDF when all that went to hell. Where I lost my arm," he raised the mechanical limb, "And all I got for all of that was a 'new' arm and a few legal threats." He snorted, glancing down at the corpse of the creature.

"Some cushy retirement this turned out. Didn't think anything could be as fucked up as they were back then. Never thought it'd be _worse_ than Uskar was."

"That's close to the first good response I've gotten to my name in years," Bass smiled behind his helmet, "Didn't catch your name, though."

"Shit, sorry. Name's Viktor Hark, but Hark's enough." His leg brace twitched spasmodically, throwing him off balance and almost toppling him over.

"Goddamnit," he grabbed hold of the joint, trying to work it back to the locked position manually, "Got clipped by one of these SOBs, and this thing's not much of a help for anything but keeping me standing still. Not even very good at that, really."

"Gunny?" Sherman gestured toward the brace. Bass nodded, and Sherman crouched alongside Hark.

"Lemme take a look at it," Sherman slung his rifle and drew an omnitool from his belt, "You'd think these things were built to short-circuit, but if you know what to cut and what to cross, it'll outlive your kids. Voids the warranty, of course," he smirked, "But somehow I don't think that matters all that much."

"What've you got there?" Kaczynski spoke up, looking at the large weapon Hark had hanging in his remaining hand, "Nice piece of ordinance." Hark glanced down at it fondly.

"Yeah. Got it from a techie a little ways back. Contact beam the miners used for smashing rocks. Turns out it works on these things better than the pistol I found in security." Sherman gave the leg brace a final slap, then turned his attention to the contact beam when Hark nodded permission. The internal motor whined as Hark shifted his leg, visibly pleased at the quick-fix.

"Hot-damn," Sherman whistled, "Whoever played with this was a crazy sonuvabitch, but a crazy sonuvabitch who knew what he was doing. Bypassed the safety limiters, IFF sensors, and even hotwired it to an extra power supply. This thing's a tank-buster."

"Damn straight," Hark grinned, hefting the weapon, "Even blasted open a locked door or two before I started to worry I might breach the hull. It's done right by me." Bass stared wordlessly at the weapon. For a moment, he was back on Tanith, watching one of his APCs erupt in flames from a blast from a similarly modified weapon.

"You alright, Gunny?" Dean broke him from his reflection, and brought him back to reality. That was then, this was now.

"Fine, private," he nodded, turning back to Hark, "You can move well enough?"

"Thanks to your boy, I'm all set," Hark flexed his mechanically-supported leg.

"Good. We'll have Chen look at your leg once we're out of the open. Until then, we keep moving." The rest of the squad were grimly reminded of the monstrous corpse lying in their midst. There were more lurking about, and their hallway had too many angles of entry for any of their liking.

"Which one's Chen?" Hark looked over the team, "Didn't get any names but yours, Gunny."

"Looks like we're both slipping on formalities," Bass allowed himself a smile, pointing out each man in turn, "That's Lance Corporal Kaczynski, but we call him Kat, then PFCs Sherman, Dean, and Ch…"

He trailed off, pointing to a man who wasn't there. The squad glanced around them. One, two, three, four…

…but no fifth. Chen was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

McNeal's Jackhammer boomed, tearing the shoulder and talon-arm from the creature's body. Though it screamed in pain and fury, it was barely slowed by the magnum shells. Another shot blasted through its torso, audibly snapping its spine. It crashed to the ground, but its remaining arms continued to pull it toward McNeal.

A third shell burst its head. Finally, its seemingly unlimited capacity for damage gave, and it lay still.

But with every passing second, the screams of the creatures grew more numerous, the clattering in the vents more constant, and McNeal's panic only rose with it. Each additional shot needed to put down even _one_ of them meant that three more had a few precious seconds to tear their way further into the room.

His last shell casing ejected from the weapon, and McNeal's back bumped the bulkhead as he fumbled for another drum magazine. He hadn't even realized how far he'd been backing up.

While McNeal was speeding closer to a breakdown, Wallace had felt almost relieved to finally face a problem that he could solve. His vision was lined with red, and his HUD's targeting system burned a constant gold in the target-rich environment. Armor-piercing rounds tore apart metal and flesh alike. Wallace spoke not a word through his gritted teeth, but the Grinder howled his war cry as it lived up to its name in full, reducing any of the creatures he turned it against to mulch.

An echoing _boom_ added itself to the cacophony of death, and the adjacent bulkhead door crumpled near the center as if struck from outside by a massive fish. Two more booms followed before chitin-coated fingers punched through, grabbing hold of the hole they had made and ripping outward. McNeal whimpered a curse as a monster that dwarfed all before it tore the door apart, forcing its way through when it was close to large enough.

It let out a bellow that shook the deck, hunched over like a massive, carapace-coated insect that knuckle-walked in a manner that more closely resembled a gorilla. McNeal's legs grew weak, but Wallace delighted in another monster to slay. The brute charged, shaking the ground with each stride, smashing aside the displaced mess hall tables and even crushing two of its smaller brethren who weren't quick enough to evade its indiscriminate charge.

The beast's hide was all but immune to small arms fire, but the Grinder's scream was not so easily ignored. Shards of chitin snapped and crumbled, and the high-caliber barrage was enough to slow even the monster's charge. It roared as several rounds in the hail managed to penetrate, splattering black ichor on the deck.

With a final surge, it lunged, one burly arm reaching out to crush the insect that had harmed it so. Even as the three-fingered hand clawed toward Wallace, the Marine grinned with malevolent satisfaction as the already weakened organic plating buckled and failed, exploding the hand in a spray of black blood and tearing further up its arm.

The hulk ground to a halt not two meters from Wallace. The Marine fired until his HUD flashed a warning of critical heat buildup in his weapon, and he overrode the automatic shutdown. By the time his fingers finally released from the firing studs, the Grinder had eaten its way through the beast's thick armor and eroded its flesh, leaving nothing of its head and burning into its chest cavity. The upper half was left nearly hollow by the time he let up long enough for the liquefied remains to dribble out.

McNeal was the first to react after what could have been anything from a few seconds of silence to a few hours. Janick was in no shape to even speak, and Wallace would have held his ground even if God Himself were to try and push him off. McNeal hastily slung his shotgun, grabbing Janick by the shoulders and pulling him along the floor as quickly as the Marine's wounds would allow him to.

"Come on, man," he panted, making for the blast door the brute had torn asunder, "We gotta move, and we got a place to move _to_ now." Wallace wordlessly deactivated the magnetic grip that braced the Grinder against the deck, letting the weight fall on the support harness.

"Give me a hand, at least," McNeal gestured to Janick. Wallace glanced down at the delirious trooper.

"He's not going to make it," Wallace stated flatly.

"Shut it," McNeal grunted, "He's gonna be fine. We're all gonna be fine."

"You know that's not true," Wallace cocked his head, "He needs serious treatment, and we don't have a medic anymore."

"Shut. Up." McNeal pronounced as clearly as he could, continuing to Janick toward the door, "Chen is with Bass. When they get back-"

"If they get back."

"_When_ they get back," McNeal snapped, "You just killed a Frankenstein's goddamn gorilla, and you're telling me we won't make it through this?"

Wallace shrugged, then stepped through the broken door.

"Alright, then. Bring him if you want, but he's your burden." McNeal was still riding on adrenaline, but was still shocked by Wallace's callousness. He was fairly detached to begin with, but this was something else. He had a point, as much as McNeal hated to admit it: Janick _would_ die without proper attention, but while Wallace was growing more introverted, McNeal couldn't help but further latch onto his squadmates, and the bond grew more dependent as there were fewer men to imprint on.

And for some reason, McNeal felt almost as if Janick were the only other man left. Wallace was already dead. His body just hadn't caught up with him yet.

**Read and review, anonymous welcome, as per norm. Hark is most likely the last new character to be introduced, for anyone worried about the rather sizable cast of OPs.**


	5. All Quiet

**Whew. First update in a good while. Happy New Year, enjoy chapter five.**

The first thing he noticed was that time wasn't flowing properly. One moment it slowed to a crawl, everything moving as if it were underwater. The next, it raced like a holovid being fast-forwarded, corridors becoming gray blurs.

The act of being awake gave him the dual sensation of a hangover's throbbing headache and the strange feeling of familiarity, as if everything he saw was reminding him of a dream he'd had the night before. Through the haze of annoyance and curiosity, the warps in time seemed almost nonexistent.

To him, nothing could stay in focus for more than a moment before something else was thrust to his equally brief attention. A shout one moment, a wet slickness on his hands the next. None lasted more than a few heartbeats.

But suddenly, he was forced to focus. The blue stripes would not let him have his waking slumber. It angered him, though he did not know why. No, not anger…anger was something from the forgotten times. This was simply an urge to destroy. Not out of malice or hatred, but simply…because.

No one thinks to ask a fire why it burns, or a plague why it spreads. And in the same vein, Chen never wondered why he killed.

The blue stripes impaired him. It cut his legs from beneath him when he tried to charge. It cut his arms from beside him when he tried to claw. Chen tried to move, but his limbs were unresponsive, replaced by a creeping cold. One of his kin leapt forward, only for the blue stripes to erase him.

The blue stripes loomed over him. Chen looked at them with curiosity. They hovered at the height of most men's heads, but it was not a man. It dripped with blood and bile, and raised a hand to Chen's kin, freezing them in the air mid-stride. It raised its other hand, this one screaming through its whirling metal fangs. Chen's kin fell apart.

The group mind cried for its destruction. But it refused to end; it continued to glow in spite of the death that swirled around it, like a black cloak.

Then it looked down at him, and the Reaper's face was nothing but stacked blue stripes. Its red right hand screamed for Chen's death, and it was not denied.

* * *

Sherman stared wordlessly at his left hand. For a second, it was complete, unmarred. But as reality ensued, his fourth and fifth fingers were still gone, forgotten on the deck after what felt like a lifetime.

Bass' comm icon lit up. The officer was talking, but no words came through. Sherman stared groggily at his commanding officer, dumbfounded by how his helmeted head moved and his hands gestured, but no words came through.

Now that he thought about it, no one else was speaking, either. Hark mouthed an unheard curse as he brought his improvised weapon to bear. Even the Marines' rifles refused to speak. Muzzle flashes pulsed like strobe lights, but lacked their normal staccato.

Sherman looked down at his damaged appendage again, letting the Jackhammer hang loosely in his right hand. A sharp sensation near his neck interrupted him, and suddenly it became so loud that his helmet automatically applied sound dampeners to prevent him from going deaf.

"…an order, got it?" Bass' voice finally returned, "Stay with me, trooper!"

The crackle of Dean's pulse rifle and the banshee wail of Kaczynski's Grinder accompanied the barrage of death that the Marines poured down the corridor. The rounds sparked off walls, a few hitting their targets. Howls of pain and the impact of projectiles on flesh were barely audible over the gunfire.

"Too much time already," Bass signaled to Dean to move as the gunnery sergeant replaced his subordinate on the firing line, "Sherman, are you good to move?"

"Yeah, I…" Sherman blinked, trying to fill in the gaps of his blurry memory, "I mean, yessir. Good to go, sir."

* * *

Viktor Hark hadn't felt so useless in a long time. He had a weapon worthy of his Marine allies, however jury-rigged it might be, but their training and equipment still put them on a completely different level.

The muzzle flashes from their weapons lit up only a few meters of hall, and the failing lights left most of the hallway shrouded in darkness. The Marine RIG units had, among numerous other things, integrated infrared and night vision modes. Whatever nightmares were stalking them, the Marines could see them as clearly as high noon.

Hark, on the other hand, was caught between two feuding mindsets. One side was cursing the limitations of his naked eyes, and how it effectively disabled his otherwise devastating C99 contact beam.

But on the other hand, Hark knew that whatever lurked in the darkness, there was a part of him that was grateful that he couldn't see them.

He caught a glimpse of movement, outside the fusillade of gunfire. That was more than enough for Hark to thumb the activation stud and squeezed the trigger. The contact beam belched a stream of white-hot energy. Whatever had moved, it vanished in the blast, along with a section of the corridor wall.

Bass hit him on the shoulder, shouting for him to keep moving. After the medic's disappearance, Bass had them on the constant move. A wise decision, as it turned out. The slavering hordes were only seconds behind his decision, and any stand they might make would have most assuredly been their last.

Hark let loose another blast of pulverizing energy, then turned and joined the group's retreat.

* * *

Kaczynski's teeth rattled in his head as he fought the Grinder's recoil. His own strength and the suit's stabilizing arm were hard-pressed to keep the weapon under control. The Grinder was intended to be fired while anchored by its magnetic brace. The rate of fire Kaczynski was maintaining while unanchored would have been laughed off as insane by any of the other company support gunners, but with the swarms coming from seemingly everywhere at once, to cut off the stream of shells would be to sign his own death warrant.

He'd always tried to be the stoic foil to Sherman's hot-headedness, but the entire situation was pulled straight from his worst nightmares. He'd read about historical battles where the side with superior firepower was defeated simply because they fought an enemy who had more bodies than they had bullets. It was a cautionary tale of undersupplying troops, of the dangers of numerical superiority…not something that could ever happen.

From the corner of his eye, Kaczynski could see that Bass triggered Sherman's stimpack. Their suits came equipped with autoinjectors of combat stimulants, which could be dispensed at the whim of their immediate superior. Sherman's loss had left him in a dangerous state of near-shock, which thankfully the stimpack had jerked him away from.

Kaczynski snarled a curse as his HUD let out a warning drone, his ammunition counter flashing yellow. The demons continued to bay for their blood, and the Grinder's roar held them back. But his ammunition supply was dwindling far more quickly than he'd ever thought possible. He still had his sidearm, but against creatures this resilient, it would be next to useless.

Now it flashed red. Thousands of rounds became hundreds, and the weapon lowered its cycles to conserve what precious little remained. One of the creatures made it past the devastating firestorm, leaping toward Kaczynski with its four arms poised to cut him apart. Kaczynski howled as fear became fury, slamming the still-whirling barrels into the beast mid-flight and slamming it against the wall.

It opened its segmented mouth, but the full weight of the Grinder smashed its head into pulp against the metal bulkhead. Kaczynski swung the weapon again, this time hitting what looked like a demonic cherub. The infant-turned-monster was small enough that the weapon turned it into little more than a smear when they collided with the opposite wall.

Another lunged forward, and then another.

_Always another_.

Kaczynski knew full well that Grinder would run dry within moments of opening fire again. Countless squirming shadows also told him that he could kill ten of them with each remaining shot and still be overwhelmed. Success was impossible. They were…

A strange sense of calm cut through the rage and fear. They could not succeed. No matter what they did, the result would be the same. Kaczynski felt, for the first and last time, that he was finally free. Free of Tanith, free of this nightmare, free of it all.

He couldn't even see Bass and the others now. Wherever they were, it didn't matter. Stanislaus Kaczynski found his peace at long last, and pulled the double-triggers of the Grinder one final time.

The Grinder sang, and the monsters danced in the light of its flames. It sang a song of death, of their death, of Chen's death, and of Kaczynski's own imminent demise. Kaczynski hummed with the weapon's dirge, no longer even aware of the shrieks and howls of the countless nightmares that sought to tear him apart. One scything talon cut through the armor on Kaczynski's thighs. But the Grinder continued to sing, and the monsters fell to pieces before its melody.

The music died with one final note, exploding the head of the foremost creature. Just as surely as his ammunition was spent, so was the life of Lance Corporal Stanislaus Kaczynski. The Marine slumped against the closest wall to take pressure off his wounded legs, and waited for the gibbering darkness to claim him.

* * *

Twin spears of energy, fired in quick succession, obliterated the nearest of the attacking creatures.

His mechanical arm might've been a crude model, but it was strong nonetheless, aided by his natural strength, and hefted the contact beam while he slung Kaczynski over his shoulders.

Viktor Hark had seen the _Ishimura_ claim too many good men. Heroes all, and each taken well before his time. Hark was a broken soldier on the wrong side of sixty. If standing at the jaws of death was what it took to snatch a younger man from it, the Viktor Hark was glad to oblige.

The hordes surged forward, and Hark aimed the compact supercollider. He squeezed the trigger, belching a beam that struck the creatures like a comet.

For half an instant, the laser's radiance brought light to the blackest shadows. It illuminated every fang and claw, every sheath of sinewy muscle and suit of pallid skin. For that half instant, Hark defied the darkness. And in the instant that followed, the contact beam annihilated it.

With a grunt of exertion, Hark moved to catch up with Bass.

* * *

Bass slammed a fist on the door controls, firing off one final burst before it closed. With the heavy door separating the Marines from the horde, Bass allowed himself to begin breathing normally again. The tide always found a way past whatever obstacles he could set up between them, but it always took them time.

"Where are we?" Dean reloaded his pulse rifle with shaking hands. Its normally adequate magazine was running dangerously low, and he didn't have nearly as many reserves as he had when they set out. Bass took a moment to check his HUD's schematics.

"Hydroponics," he answered, reloading his rifle as well, "If the floor plan I've got is right, we should be…" He trailed off, noticing that Hark, and the badly wounded Kaczynski slung over his shoulders.

"Maker's balls," Sherman murmured, reaching a hand toward his friend, "Is he-?"

"He's alive," Hark panted, laying Kaczynski down on the deck, "Took a nasty swipe across the legs, and I don't know where his gun went, but he's alive." Sherman breathed a sigh of relief, but Bass was not placated.

"When did this happen?" Bass demanded.

"Not a full minute ago," Hark replied, confused, "What's eating at you?"

"Simple," Bass snarled, "You drag one of my men to cover with his legs mangled, and I don't see a damn second of it." His index finger crept around his rifle's trigger guard. Kaczynski's head drifted to one side, facing Bass, his voice crackling weakly through their helmet comms.

"Don't trust him, gunny…" he groaned.

The pieces were falling into place. Bass had led his under-strength team for the better part of two hours with no casualties. But a half hour after picking up Hark, he'd taken two casualties, one of them likely dead. First Chen was lost, taken while Hark's story and improvised equipment had bewitched them. And now Kaczynski was down, and Bass could tell that he was seeing the same things Bass was.

"What, are you saying _I_ had something to do with it?" Hark said with astonishment.

"I'm saying that it's only after we pick you up that we lose two good Marines," Bass replied slowly, as if he was holding back much more aggressive wording, "And I'm saying that you're the only thing that changed before we lost them."

"Are you joking?" Hark spat, "I dragged him here while you were-"

"I look after my men!" Bass shouted, cutting him off, "You're not one of them, and since you joined us, I've lost two of them. How long until the next, Hark?" His pulse rifle primed with a high-pitched whine, and Hark's expression turned from confusion to outright fear.

"Maybe you take Dean after you finish off Kat," Bass leveled his rifle at the crewman, "Maybe it'll be Sherman. Or maybe you'll have the balls to bump me off next."

"Look, gunny, I meant no disrespect when-"

"Don't trust him, sarge," Kaczynski groaned again. Hark ignored him, but Bass had heard enough.

"Who's next, Hark?" Bass demanded, his HUD's target reticule burning gold, "And what then? You take strip us for armor and guns and keeping running?" Hark's mouth moved, but he couldn't form a reply. Bass's trigger-finger tightened.

"Answer me!"

"Gunny!" Bass' rifle was suddenly forced down. The officer took a quick step back, and Sherman took his hand off the rifle's top barrel.

"He's your goddamn friend, Sherman," Bass seethed, "Don't back this piece of shit over Kat."

"Gunny-"

"He'll 'catch a swipe' across the throat next. And none of us will catch a glimpse of it, either, but who wouldn't trust a broken veteran?"

"Gunny, I-"

"He'll put on a show, carrying him like this, but mark my words, once he gets too heavy-"

"Gunny!" Sherman shoved Bass against the bulkhead, "He's dead, Gunny. Just…stop."

Bass did stop, and the red haze lifted from his vision. The scene before him seemed to change as starkly as night from day. He saw Dean, crouched alongside Kaczynski, making the sign of an Old Earth religion. Hark was pressed against the opposite wall, his grizzled features still marked by fear. Sherman's voice was breaking, on the verge of tears.

And Bass was the one with his gun raised, trying to kill in the name of the dead.

"What did…what do you mean?" Bass shook his head, thinking for a moment that he just needed to shake away this new filter over his eyes, "Who's dead?"

"Kat, sarge," Dean replied quietly, "Kat's dead."

"No," Hark's fear became confusion once again, "That can't be right. He was alive when I grabbed him." Dean turned Kaczynski's head, revealing a centimeter-wide hole on the back of the helmet.

"He probably was. One of…them…probably got him while you were carrying him. It went clean through. Probably went without a sound."

"But he's…" Bass muttered, letting his rifle hang slack in one hand as he slid down the wall, "Hark was..."

"…trying to save him," Sherman finished bitterly, "Trying to save him when we didn't even see him go down."

Bass was abruptly seeing the world as it was. Hark was the only one who'd seen Kaczynski fall in the chaos, and had risked his life pulling him to safety. He'd have just been food for the horde if Hark hadn't intervened. He was no more responsible for Kat's death than…

Bass took a deep breath. Hark was no more responsible for Kat's death than Bass had been for his men who'd died on Tanith. He'd been seeing patterns where no patterns existed, laying blame when there was no one at fault. He was no better than the media that had chosen to crucify him for the Tanith disaster.

"I'm…" Bass noticed for the first time that his hands were trembling. He wrapped them around their respective spots on the pulse rifle to stop them.

"Sherman, you're acting CO," he pushed himself to his feet, "My judgment's compromised, and you're long overdue for a promotion as it stands." Sherman was taken aback.

"Sir, I don't-"

"No debate, private," Bass cut him off, "My last act as CO is promoting you to acting. If you and Kat hadn't been buried by Tanith's mess or been so damned happy as troopers, you'd both have made staff sergeant by now. You're fit to lead, and I know enough to see that I'm not."

"Understood, sir."

Bass glanced up in time to see Sherman snap a crisp salute. Dean did the same. It was as close to a sendoff as Gunnery Sergeant Bass could expect. After this was over, he'd likely be hanging up his uniform. He was still young by noncommissioned officer's standards, but aged decades in just a handful of years as surely as if he'd let time do its work.

The chatter of the horde was humming through the walls. Bass would need to wait to make amends with Hark, if that were even still possible. Sherman ordered them up, now only four men from what was once a full platoon, and their push through the bowels of the _Ishimura_ resumed.

* * *

Bass fired off a burst as a creature dropped from a ventilation duct, tearing its head from its body as Dean put several rounds into its chest for good measure.

At point, Sherman's Jackhammer boomed, dropping another abomination. Riding high on adrenaline, and his suit's auto-injector administering an anticoagulant to prevent any bleeding before he could bandage his hand, the acting CO was no longer even slowed by his lost digits. Within minutes of combat, he'd practically forgotten he'd ever had an extra finger and a half.

Even Hark seemed to have recovered, having looked into the eyes of death in Charlie Bass and come back alive, refusing to give the creatures what even a Marine could not take.

Bass had stepped down because he knew he was not in a right state of mind. He'd folded under paranoid delusions, and almost executed a civilian for crimes he could never have committed. That much had been clear to what remained of his team, and Bass had no desire to cover any of it up.

What he'd not told any of them was Kaczynski's warning. He'd heard it as clear as any other, goading him, pushing him to violent action even with a hole through the back of Lance Corporal Stanislaus Kaczynski's head. What he'd not told any of them was that even left behind, rigged with an incendiary charge for a funeral pyre, Kaczynski had not yet fallen silent.

"Don't trust him, gunny…" he whispered, past the thunder of guns and the trample of boots, "Don't trust him…"


	6. The Most Danerous Game

**Been a while since last update, but a genuine thanks to everyone who's tolerated my sketchy release pattern for the past six chapters. Additional thanks to anyone that's picked up the story since then. The story's within a chapter or two of a conclusion, and I've a decent idea of how I'd like it to end. So without further ado, here's chapter six. **

PFC Jared Wallace chewed a mouthful of 'wake-ups,' as the Marines had dubbed them, as he smashed an armored fist into the control panel of a malfunctioning door. The age-old repair method worked, and the door's maintenance failsafe forced it open. Wallace pushed onward, with the door having cut only a few seconds into his movement.

"McNeal, you got the rear?" Wallace asked, taking a two-handed grip of his Grinder once more. No reply came.

"McNeal, you need to stay sharp," Wallace looked around, noting that there was no one behind him. He stared into space a few moments, as if listening to a voice that only he could hear.

"Right, forgot. Left, departed, gone," he muttered aloud to himself, resuming his walk, "Unreliable under pressure, didn't shoot, fire, discharge weapon. Carrying corpse, body, cadaver…wouldn't leave it."

He paused, bloodshot eyes darting upward as a clamor sounded from the ventilation shaft overhead. With one smooth gesture he arced the Grinder upward, firing off a long burst that swept down the length of the duct. He was rewarded by a feral shriek, followed by a weak gurgle, then silence.

Wallace grunted as his HUD flashed, bringing the red ammo counter to his attention. His hand hovered over the spot where he ordinarily had a spare ammunition box, but found it empty. He briefly remembered having loaded it into the Grinder what seemed like a lifetime ago. He'd spent the better part of his other box tearing apart the armored brute that had opened passage from the mess hall.

He glanced along both lengths of the corridor, then stepped into an adjoining room. It was a crewman's quarters, from the look of it: a small, twelve by ten compartment with a bed, dresser, and desk. Taking care first to seal the door, Wallace swept his free hand across the desk, knocking off the assortment of data slates and hard files, then dropped his Grinder onto the newly-vacated surface.

Wallace removed his helmet. His ear-length hair was matted with sweat despite the suit's internal cooling system. He flicked off the lid from a bottle drawn from his waist pouches, pouring a few of the square pills into his hand before popping them into his mouth. The 'wake-ups' were stimulants designed to keep soldiers alert in prolonged combat situations or guard duty, but intended to be a step down from the adrenaline stims that their suit's autoinjectors could supply.

With a new mouthful of tablets, Wallace set to work on the Grinder. He disconnected the power lines, then the ammo box, and finally turned his attention to the most troublesome portion: the servo-arm.

The mechanical limb was meant to take the majority of the weight off his own arms, as well as compensate for the Grinder's formidable recoil, but it had been malfunctioning ever since a blow from one of the creatures clipped it. Now, it sparked periodically, and the joints were leaking the blue ichor that served as both a lubricant and a cooling agent. Wallace disconnected the weapon easily enough, but it was more difficult to detach the arm from its mounting on his chest.

Wallace tried unsuccessfully to force it off. The warped material proved too strong to break with anything but the creature's superhuman strength. He reached up to his left pectoral and unsheathed his combat knife. The blade was unlike the laser-blades that were becoming increasingly common in that it was pure metal, instead relying on its monomolecular edge.

Wallace shoved the tip of the knife underneath the servo-arm's moorings, working it back and forth until he heard a _pop_. With a deft twist, the arm clattered to the floor.

Next was his Jackhammer. Wallace unslung it from across his back, half-wondering where he'd gotten it. McNeal had had a Jackhammer, but…

The haze brought on by lack of rest (and the drugs that kept him moving in spite of it) caused the thought to drift away. Wallace didn't bother trying to reclaim it. The only sensations he attached to the shotgun's origins were pain and anger. It was easier to accept the good fortune of having a backup weapon besides his sidearm.

Fortunately for maintenance purposes, the Jackhammer shared the pulse rifle's hardiness comparable to a Kalashnikov, meaning Wallace had to do nothing save shaking off a few stray flecks of gore and slide in fresh shells to top off the drum cassette.

A noise caused him to jerk his head around, tracking the sound upward. Three fingers wrapped themselves around the slats of the wall-mounted vent, uselessly tugging against them as the creature attached to them slobbered on the other side. After a few seconds, the vent gave, spilling the creature onto the floor at Wallace's feet.

She couldn't have been much more than sixteen when she was turned. Her fingers had fused into three long claws, and her lips had long since been stripped away to expose her new fangs. Past the horrors of her mutation, Wallace was dimly reminded of the girl he'd shared his first time with.

With one calm movement, he raised and fired the Jackhammer, blasting her left arm off at the shoulder.

The creature howled, thrashing in an effort to regain its footing. A second echoing shot took off her right arm, this time just below the elbow. Wallace planted a booted foot atop her chest, pinning her in place despite her leg's spasms and snapping jaws. The Marine leaned over, cocking his head with curiosity.

The way he'd remembered it, they had both been happy. Nervous, to be sure, but when it was all said and done, happy. But like an afterimage superimposing itself over the sight that had created it, his recollection became clouded. He saw flashes of the girl from years ago, but she was crying, begging him to…stop? He was older, too, bigger and stronger than he'd been at her age.

He let the Jackhammer hang from its strap as he drew his knife again, his left hand pressing against her forehead and forcing the snapping head in place as the combat blade came to rest against her throat. Another afterimage, just as fleeting as the first, and another knife pressed against the sobbing girl. Wallace furrowed his brow, trying to remember properly even as he slashed across the neck so deeply that he scraped the spine.

Standing from the corpse, he wiped the knife clean on the nearby bed's sheets. Another sound came from the vent. He strained his ears, but he couldn't tell if it was the cry of his victim or the ravings of another creature.

"One way to find out," he murmured, grabbing his helmet. Leaving behind his Grinder and its bone-dry magazine, he grabbed ahold of the ruptured vent and pulled himself up, finding just enough room to squat or crawl inside.

He upended what remained of his wake-ups into his mouth, discarding the empty bottle. For a moment, he thought of a second bottle, one that treated something important, but the thought floated past unheeded. He slid his helmet over his head, letting it lock into place as the pneumatic seal took hold.

Wallace kept his Jackhammer slung, but drew his sidearm and kept his knife in his left hand. The countless hours he'd spent in the claustrophobic tunnels of Vietnam had been with nothing but a blade and a pistol, and the vents were wider and taller than the Vietcong tunnels had been.

Or were they? For a moment, he was watching another man crawl through those hellish tunnels of a nation he'd never known, but that moment passed as quickly as it came. With his pistol and dagger, he began his hunt.

Yes, that's what it was: a hunt. They relied on their foes remaining on the run, on the defensive. Their only strength was as hunters, stalking frightened prey. But Wallace would take that advantage away from them, hunt _them_ and kill them with fury that they could not withstand.

The first lay dead in the quarters, nearly decapitated and partially dismembered.

The second he caught miraculously unaware, slamming it against the walls of the vent as he hewed it asunder with his blade.

The third roared when he found it eating the remains of a crewmember. Then it screamed until he finally hacked its head free of its neck.

After the fourth, Jared Wallace's fracturing memory simply lost count.

* * *

"Alright, here's the quick version," Sherman shouldered his Jackhammer, opening his free palm as a floating schematic of the _Ishimura _lit up above it, "We're here…" One point blipped on the schematic.

"…and we need to get to here." Another point, still a sizable distance away, blinked.

"You said that there were still undamaged shuttles, right?" Sherman looked over to Hark. The large crewman nodded.

"I know that the colony's evacuation brought in a bunch of extra ships. Mostly small shuttles, but more than large enough for us."

"Good," Sherman nodded, "We've got a few ways we can get to the launch bay. Which is the fastest still intact?" A few regions of the ship were glowing red, indicating either a catastrophic hull breech, or some other form of obstruction that they couldn't transverse.

"That, right there," Hark traced a finger along the flickering hologram, "Takes us through one of the mess halls. It's a straight shot through, and a few corridors away from the shuttle bay." Hark saw the three Marines share a look.

"Something I'm missing here?" he raised an eyebrow. Sherman shook his head.

"It's nothing. We just haven't had a great track record with mess halls so far."

Bass and Dean, meanwhile, held their positions looking down opposite ends of their corridor, pulse rifles at the ready. With Bass' concession of command to Sherman, he readily accepted sentry duty alongside his former subordinate. Sherman whistled to them, calling both back into the group.

"We heard it already," Bass saved Sherman the trouble of reiterating the plan. He felt a momentary pang of guilt as he looked at the ragtag team. Not a day ago, 3rd platoon had been over thirty men strong. Now, he had no reason to believe there were any left beside the three of them.

"Then let's move." Sherman took point once again, and the corridors passed them by with eerie silence. They passed only one body, a man with his throat cut and a bloody boxcutter in his limp grasp.

The silence was deafening. Their footsteps echoed like cannon fire, their breath wheezed like bellows. More than once, they froze mid-stride, weapons all aiming in different directions as a new and disturbing noise arose, but nothing ever came of it. It only served to push their fingers closer to the triggers and drive their nerves up that much higher.

A downward ramp led to the mess hall door. Sherman heard a sloshing, and raised a closed fist. The group froze, and Sherman realized that his own feet were the source of the sound. He glanced down with a growing sense of dread, only for his fears to be confirmed.

"Shit," he cursed. By the time the ramp would have reached the floor, there was water that would reach up to their waists should they enter it. The others saw the source of Sherman's grief, each cursing their luck in his own way.

"Are we going to-" Dean began, but Sherman cut him off.

"I don't know, damnit," he snapped, "Let me…let me think."

"I'm not questioning your command, but we don't have much time to spare," Bass spoke up, "Viktor, you said this was the best route?" Hark shrugged.

"It _was_, but I didn't guess it'd be flooded."

"We'd need to take it anyway," Sherman finally said, "We were lucky enough not to run into trouble on our way here. I won't have us backtrack and take additional risk." He glanced back at the squad, grinning behind his helmet.

"Unless you ladies are worried about getting your feet wet, that is." Dean barely held back a laugh. Hark chuckled, shaking his head. Bass smiled, both in mirth and satisfaction the he'd chosen the right man for command.

"Last one to the other side buys a round once we're off this hellheap," Sherman lifted his Jackhammer enough to ensure that it was above the waterline, then walked into the murky water. The others followed, and soon they were pushing through the waist-high water. The door to the mess hall was miraculously still working, opening and allowing them inside.

Most of the lights in the mess were long since burned out. The Marines activated their helmet lamps, while Hark lit a clip-on light attached to the breast of his shirt. The four beams swept across the brown water, illuminating the occasional plastic tray or table. The mess hall itself was almost thirty meters across, designed to accommodate hundreds of people.

"Wait," Bass placed a hand on Sherman's shoulder, speaking slowly, "Hold perfectly still." He turned his head to Dean and Hark, indicating that they do the same. The men stopped, letting the ripples around them slosh and settle.

"What's wrong, gunny?" Sherman whispered, ignoring his command in favor of Bass' soldier sense. Bass didn't reply at first, returning his left hand to the tri-barrel of his pulse rifle and scanning the water with slow and deliberate sweeps.

"Something…" he murmured, dedicating little effort to the words, "There's something…"

"There's something in the water."

* * *

Dean was struck first. A fleshy whip lashed from the murky water and coiled around his neck, all over the course of an instant. He barely had time to gasp before being violently pulled beneath the surface.

Hark reacted first, swinging his contact beam toward the churning waters. The weapon charged, but Bass shunted it aside, sending the beam firing off into the ceiling.

"You'll hit Dean, idiot!" Bass shouted, tossing his pulse rifle to Sherman and pulling out his combat knife, "Just cover me!" With another word, he plunged into the water where the surface was the most disturbed.

Sherman looked in the direction they'd come from not a moment too soon. Several clusters of ripples were moving quickly across the water's surface, betraying whatever was swimming below it. Hark saw them, too, and brought his weapon to bear against this new threat.

After a moment of charging, the C99 howled, belching a lance of white-hot energy. It carved a shallow furrow across the water before it struck, flashing water to vapor. Whatever was beneath the surface was blasted to pieces.

But that was only the first of several. Sherman trained his newly acquired pulse rifle on another of the ripples, opening fire in the same moment Hark fired a second time. The assault rifle cut a swath through the water, darkening it further with blood. Sherman shifted the stream of fire to a second target, just as it broke the surface with a leap.

Like all its cohorts, the creature was hideous, but not so much that it could not be identified as having once been human. Its jaw hung low, as if it had unhinged during its mutation, and the inside of its mouth was lined with fangs. The most prominent feature was its tail, of the same variety that had ensnared Dean: it had no legs, but from below its waist was a flexible tail made from its lengthened spine and what appeared to be intestines. It ended in a vicious blade, which Sherman had no intention of letting near him.

Its leap did not last long. Sherman had already been tracking it, and revealing itself simply made it easier for the Marine to see where to shoot it. One arm was torn off at the shoulder, and its head burst under the firestorm. It fell back into the water, floating on the surface with a few final twitches.

Another managed to lurk around Hark's killzone, leaping from the water when it was a few short meters away. The crewman brought up his contact beam out of reflex, squeezing the trigger as the creature's snarling mouth was practically touching the muzzle. The ensuing beam pulverized its head, tearing through its torso and leaving it in two nearly symmetrical pieces.

Sherman caught more movement out of the corner of his eye, but not that of more hostiles. Bass finally surfaced, and Dean along with him, the younger Marine's arm slung over Bass' shoulder. Bloody water cascaded off their armor, and Sherman feared that not all of it was from the slain creature that bobbed to the surface alongside them.

"Almost there, Dean-o," Bass drew his sidearm from its holster, firing off several shots one-handed as he began pushing toward the exit, "Just stay with me."

Sherman fired off another burst, then tapped Hark's back. The crewman got the message, and both began pushing through the water once again, firing all the while. More corpses floated to the surface, either shredded by Sherman's assault fire or dismembered by one of Hark's withering blasts.

The pulse rifle's ammo counter turned red. Sherman cursed, slinging it and switching to his Jackhammer with practiced smoothness. Without the rifle's range, the creatures began to close in. Hark's contact beam may have been more powerful shot-for-shot, but its rate of fire couldn't hope to compare to the assault rifle's. Undaunted, Sherman continued to fire, the scattergun making short work of anything that tried to close the distance.

Bass reached the door first. He punched the blue 'open' indicator, and the thick door ground open painstakingly slowly. Hark followed second, and Sherman took up the rear. One creature made a final bid to make it through the door, but received a Jackhammer shell to its face for the attempt. Finally, with a screech of tortured metal, the door thudded shut.

As soon as they had climbed the stairs out of the water, Bass wasted no time in tending to Dean. The young Marine was in poor shape, to say the least. The creature had done a number on his armor while they were under water, scouring it with countless gashes, some of which had cut through to skin.

The worst injury, however, was to his left arm. It had been severed at the wrist, and even without medical training, Bass could tell it would be fatal without proper treatment. Bass removed Dean's helmet. He was deathly pale, and his vision was unfocused. Bass started to authorize a combination of painkillers and adrenaline to stave off shock, but Hark stopped him.

"Hang on," he aimed his contact beam down the corridor away from the others and fired off a charged shot. With the bolt spent, he gritted his teeth and pressed the barrel to Dean's wrist. With a hiss and the sickening smell of burnt flesh, the bleeding subsided. Dean furrowed his brow, only feeling discomfort through his delirium.

"That woulda hurt like a bastard if you'd shot him up first," Hark smiled grimly, "Go ahead." Bass did so, clearing the haze across Dean's eyes, but not curing him of the results of his bloodloss.

"Gunny, I…" he groaned, blinking as his pupils dilated, "My hand hurts, gunny. Is it busted bad?"

"You're fine, private," Bass's faceplate retracted into his helmet, "One ride on a medivac, and you'll be sipping drinks on the outer rim for three months. You're one lucky sonuvabitch, know that?"

"You know it, gunny," Dean smiled weakly, then frowned, "I think I lost my gun. I'm sorry, gunny."

"Don't sweat it, Dean-o," Sherman crouched next to his comrade, "You pulled more than your weight. Just stay awake, alright? That's your job."

"That an order, sir?"

"Damn straight," Sherman nodded, handing the empty pulse rifle back to Bass, "And don't tell me you came this far for an insubordination charge."

"Sir yessir," Dean slurred, abruptly grimacing as the adrenaline brought him to greater awareness of his condition.

"Can you stand?" Hark glanced down for a moment before resuming his lookout. Dean first tried to support himself on his wounded arm, but Bass hastily shifted his weight to his right arm, bracing him as he stood shakily to his feet.

"You can't join the Corp if you can't even walk, sir," Dean smirked, reaching for his helmet, only to see that the hand he was reaching with wasn't there. Hark winced. He'd lost his own arm in the midst of combat. He didn't have time to feel shock until much later, but Dean was making the horrible discovery immediately after the fact.

"Huh," he raised his eyebrows, turning the stump over a few times, "That's rotten luck," he looked up at Sherman and nodded toward the Marine's two missing fingers, "Sorry to outdo you, chief."

After a long moment, Sherman started laughing. It started as a chuckle, but quickly built to full-blown guffaws. It spread infectiously to Bass and Hark, while Dean managed to crack a wide smile.

In spite of everything, they laughed. In spite of Dean's lost hand, in spite of Sherman's missing fingers, in spite of the echoing voice in Bass' head, and in spite of the wound on Hark's leg, they laughed. The laughed at the improbability of the whole situation, at the horrors they had been exposed to, at the friends they had all lost. They laughed because they had fallen so deeply into despair, they had come through the other side to hope. If Dean, barely more than a boy and the least experienced of 3rd platoon, could joke at his own expense, then what right had Bass, who could not silence a dead man's voice? What right had Sherman, a fellow veteran of Tanith and a reluctant leader? What right had Hark, an aging militia veteran who traded his youth and his right arm for a weak pension?

For nearly a full minute, they could do nothing but laugh. And had the creatures that infested the _Ishimura_ been capable of it, they would have trembled in fear, for nothing is more unnerving than the laughter of men who were neck-deep in hell.

**Just as a side-note on Wallace: if you caught the reference to a second set of pills...well, yeah. The Marker plays hell with perfectly sane men, and Wallace's preexisting condition is making his mind break apart more quickly and more violently. Consider anything he remembers to be potentially unreliable. I think I established that fairly well, but I'm playing it safe after I noted how Clarke's cameo as the Reaper was rather difficult to decipher.  
**

**Otherwise, the usual policy stands. Anonymous reviews are welcome, though registered users make it easier for me to answer questions if there are any. **


	7. Damage Control

**Probably my fastest update yet. Kudos to codythedude. He's the first I've seen in ages who recognized the names I used. I'd say this in a message, but he's rather unreachable. Regardless, glad to see another fan of _Starfist_. Moving on, then. Here's Chapter Seven:**

James McNeal was happy he'd done it wrong. He'd been so afraid that it would hurt that he killed Janick, in what he thought was mercy, but found now that what he'd feared was nothing more than a return to Eden. His own bullet had misfired, but McNeal was happy for it.

Freedom from choice was beautiful. The group spoke, and McNeal followed without hesitation, not because he was forced to, but because he felt no urge to oppose it. EarthGov had leaned so heavily on military might to coerce its subjects into submission, but the group united as EarthGov could never hope to do.

He found Chen, too, but the medic was asleep. For a moment, McNeal was saddened. Men could only be reborn once. It was beyond even the group's power to wake one who had ended a second time.

But Janick's presence comforted him. With a single kiss to the forehead, the group had breathed life into a body that had so tragically lost it. McNeal had been overwhelmed with guilt, but the group had saved him from it. Now, Janick was the physical form of what the group embodied: many as one. Three independent parts, all Janick, but each capable of continuing onward should the worst come to pass.

McNeal felt a twinge of panic. The group was upset. Something sought to divide them…

The Creator. McNeal was saddened once again. The Creator had given the group life, yet they could never welcome it into the fold. It had no blood, but stone, no flesh, but glyphs. It created the group, allowed it to live, but…

No! McNeal cried out, a sentiment shared in unison by thousands of other voices. The Creator sought the Reaper's aide! Corridors and vents became blurs as McNeal raced through the bowels of the _Ishimura_. Janick broke from one to three to speed his travel. Time was of the essence, more so than ever.

McNeal had wanted to find his friends. A handful had not yet been given the group's kiss, and they were afraid of the group, just as McNeal had once been. McNeal wanted to welcome them himself, but the group intent was clear: stop the Reaper. Do not let Him harm the Creator.

McNeal's friends could wait. If the Reaper was not stopped, the group would crumble.

* * *

"Has Agent Daniels reported back yet?"

"_Negative, commander. Last transmission placed her en route to the colony. Apparently there were some unforeseen complications._"

"And those would be…?"

"_One of the _Kellion's_ crew is still alive, sir. Apparently he's proving quite troublesome_."

"Hm. I suppose it's Hammond?"

"_No, sir. Hammond is confirmed KIA. This is one of the engineers_._ Sending his file now._"

"I see. And I'm to understand that an engineer, one with no combat experience, no less, has survived an infestation where an entire platoon of Marines did not?"

"'_Survived' is a bit deceiving, commander. Agent Daniels says he's long since succumbed to the Marker. His survival is most likely a fluke._"

"A shame. He might've been worth recruiting. At any rate, prep the boarding teams. I want ship purified and the Marker secured, regardless of how long Daniels plans to keep dragging her feet."

* * *

Bass loaded the last cylindrical magazine into his pulse rifle. His ammunition (and what had been salvaged from the fallen) was running dry in the home stretch of their push through hell. The squad wasn't faring much better: Sherman's Jackhammer had few shells left, and Hark's improvised contact beam was only holding up because of the microfusion breeder struggling to keep its power supply charged. To fail now because they ran out of bullets would be tragic, not to mention anticlimactic.

The only weapon that had plenty of spare munition was Dean's pistol, but he had an entirely different problem. He was doped up to his eyeballs to stave off shock from the loss of his hand, and his use of the pistol was more symbolic than it was practical. He'd be lucky to make any significant contribution to the group's firepower with only his sidearm even if he'd been in perfect health.

But none of that mattered, provided they could make it to the shuttle bay. After that, ammo was a non-issue, and Bass could worry about keeping Dean stable until they made it out of restricted space and back to EarthGov territory.

Even with Dean weighing them down, the party was moving with the vigor of a second wind. They were trying to conserve their precious ammo pool, but even firing conservatively, creatures fell to pieces whenever they crossed their path.

But Bass couldn't shake the niggling feeling that something was wrong, something big, something that his mind was screaming at him to notice in spite of his newfound optimism.

Another creature dropped from the ceiling, landing on its feet and howling. Bass fired three bursts. The first two ripped its clawed arms off at the shoulder, leaving it with the pathetic vestigial arms sprouting from its chest. The third burst turned its head into a bloody splatter against the wall. Its supernatural ability to absorb damage apparently confined to its torso, the thing collapsed atop the body of another.

"This is it," Hark breathed, "Right here, just passed…" he paused, trying to operate the keypad alongside the blast door, "…shit."

"Problem, Hark?" Sherman asked without looking, choosing instead to keep his Jackhammer trained down the hall they'd just come down. Bass followed suit, but kept glancing to the pair of bodies. What was the 'something' that he couldn't quite put his finger on?

"Yeah. The damned door won't open," Hark propped his contact beam against the wall as he pried open the control panel, "Can't tell if it's burned out from the other side, or if I'm just locked out."

"What's the difference?"

"If it's the latter, I can override it and force the door open. If it's the latter, we'll need to find another door," Hark replied, cursing as the circuitry sparked and scorched his organic hand.

"I got something for it," Sherman began rummaging through his supply pouches, "Should have us through in a few minutes."

"I've got a better idea," Hark picked up the contact beam and took a few steps back, "Should have us through in a few seconds."

* * *

The door exploded outward, sending shards of shrapnel into the hangar as surely as if it had been the blast of a bomb. Two creatures had been prowling on the other side, having heard the noises on the other side and come to investigate. The blast reduced them to bloody smears on the hangar floor.

Hark stepped through first, sweeping his still-hot contact beam across his field of vision. Bass and Dean followed, with Sherman taking up the rear. Hark looked over the hangar, grinning with satisfaction as he tallied the ships and chose a suitable escape craft.

"Pick us a good one," Sherman slapped Hark on the back, "Quickly, if possible." Hark nodded and trotted toward the ships. Sherman glanced back to Bass and Dean.

Bass was focusing on other details. He saw the shredded remains of the two creatures on the floor by the door, but saw other bodies strewn about the hangar in various states of dismemberment. Some were in early stages of decay, suggesting that they'd been dead for at least a few days, but others were still leaking blood, and too far away from the door to have been killed by Hark's forced entry.

"Two bodies," Bass muttered, "Two…bodies…" Suddenly, the enormity of his count hit him. In the hall, he'd killed one…yet there were two.

"Hark!" he shouted, "Get us a ship, ASAP!"

"What's wrong, gunny?" Sherman frowned, "We're still on our toes, but these things aren't stopping us now. We're practically home fr-"

"Not them," Bass breathed, slowly drawing his sidearm and turning to face the far end of the shuttle bay, "There's someone else here."

Sherman opened his mouth to reply, but a bloody hole exploded on his left chest, piercing the back of his armor and exiting out the front. Before Bass had the chance to react, a blue laser dot settled on his forehead, and his world exploded into darkness.

* * *

"Three tangos down," Trooper Joshua Persons dropped the mostly-empty magazine from his M205 'Seeker' rifle, switching it for a fresh one. The weapon accepted with a high-pitched whine, and the sniper rose from his prone position to a low crouch.

"_Good work_," the voice over his helmet's communicator replied, "_Any details?_"

"Looks like survivors from the _Valor_," he looked through his scope, observing the EDF Marine Corp insignia and distinct skull-shaped helm, "There's a fourth somewhere, too. A civilian from the looks of it."

"_Take him down, then resume your watch. Stalvern out._"

"Yessir," Persons closed his comm channel, jumping from the wing of the shuttle he'd settled on. Undoubtedly, their companion had heard the shots, and since he hadn't come running already, it meant he knew well enough not to show himself. Persons had to track him down on foot, but he had help.

Three more black-clad troopers fell into formation, each with a factory-gray plasma rifle in his grip. Their mirrored helms contrasted sharply with those of the Marines. The Marines' helmets inspired the fear of death, but these invoked something closer to hopelessness. They were blank, featureless, as if the armored men weren't human at all. Most men they faced knew on some level that they could expect no mercy, nor did they.

The four fanned out, weaving among the mixture of ships. Integrated IR highlighted even the smallest heat output, none of the ships had been active for some time now. The only heat sources in the hangar came from the recently-produced corpses and, once he fell into their sights, the rogue civilian.

Orders were clear enough: Persons and his team were to mop up any of the 'necromorphs' remaining in the shuttle bay, and ensure that what few survivors there might be aboard the ship didn't make it out. So far, he'd done the job admirably, and now had three new notches to add to the stock of his Seeker. And a fourth, once he found the civilian.

"_Hrk-_"

Persons was momentarily caught off guard by the grunt over the squad channel. _Better safe than sorry_, he thought.

"Squad, check in. Alpha one-one."

"_Alpha one-two_."

"_Alpha one-three_."

"…"

"Alpha one-four, check in," Persons ordered.

"…" Persons cursed to himself. Still nothing but static.

"Alpha, fall in. Regroup at primary rally point. Confirm."

"_Alpha one-two,_ _confirmed_."

"_Alpha one-three, con-argh!_"

"Alpha one-three, repeat last," Persons began to sweat. He'd momentarily held out hope that Alpha one-four was wandering some corner of the hangar with a communications malfunction, wondering why no one was talking to him, but if Alpha one-three was down, too…

"…" Nothing but static, from two of the four channels now.

"Double time, one-two," Persons hissed, sweeping his Seeker from side to side, quickening his pace to the rally point. Shadows were beginning to form sinister shapes in the corners of his eyes. This wasn't possible. He'd spent the better part of two hours flawlessly holding out against the necromorphs with just half a squad. Had something gotten the civilian, then come for them?

He arrived at the rally point, now sweating heavily despite his suit's cooling system. Alpha one-two was nowhere to be seen, and Person was actually afraid to check in by radio to confirm what he already feared. Another movement caused him to whirl around, this time finding the source.

It was the civilian, sure enough. He froze in the light of the Seeker's targeter like a deer in a car's headlights, not even trying to raise the improvised weapon held in his hands. He slowly placed it on the floor, raising his hands just as slowly.

"Look now," he stated carefully, "I got no quarrel with you. I just want to…" He trailed off, eyes widening in horror. Persons had not made a move yet, and realized far to late that the source of the man's fear was right behind him.

One swift stroke took Person's head off, and Alpha team was finally laid to rest.

The killer's gaze fell on Hark, still paralyzed and his weapon out of his grip, and advanced on the crewman.

* * *

At first he thought they were fireworks. He'd seen a firework show once, on Earth, long before he'd joined the Corp. It had been beautiful, awe-inspiring. It was so far away, yet he felt as if he could have reached out and touched it.

After a few seconds, he realized that they were in fact not fireworks, but sparks, yellow and red. His vision swam, then he blinked to clear the sticky film that obstructed his eyes. He reached up and clawed off his helmet. The sparks ceased, but his vision was still tinted red. He wiped his eyes with gloved hands. They came away red, but at least he could see now.

His helmet was destroyed and his head was bleeding, but from the throbbing headache, Gunnery Sergeant Charlie Bass knew he was very much alive.

Disoriented, he brushed against the body alongside him. Dean didn't respond, nor did his chest move with the telltale rhythm of breathing. Bass' heart sank as he realized that the young Marine was beyond saving.

Sherman wheezed, miraculously. Bass pulled himself up and looked at the chest wound. By all laws of nature, it should have pierced his heart, but his RIG blinked nonetheless. It was red, but that was better than nothing.

Ignoring the spike of pain that drilled into his head with the effort, Bass grabbed hold of both Marines' armored collars, straining under their combined weight. The closest shuttle was a mid-size cargo hauler, easily large enough to accommodate the two and, hopefully, have some sort of medical facilities. The ramp was thankfully deployed, and after a few agonizing minutes, Bass had them inside.

He limped to the array of containers, finally finding what he was looking for. He pulled it from the stacks, sliding it over to the two prone Marines and cracking it open. He tossed out the various perishable items, then grabbed Dean's shoulders and lifted the Marine into the container. He landed none too gently, but time was of the essence. Bass slammed the lid shut, pressing a few commands and waiting several breathless seconds before the acknowledgement lights winked green. Bass slumped against the side of the container, sighing with relief.

"What's the point, gunny?" Bass glanced up at the familiar voice, his relief dissolving in an instant.

Kaczynski leaned against the opposite wall alongside the unconscious Sherman, arms crossed over his chest.

"He couldn't have passed more than a minute or two ago," Bass grunted, pushing himself to his feet and moving to Sherman, "And that's a stasis container. After I get back to EarthGov territory, the corpsmen can have at him with only those few minutes against them."

"Quick thinking," Kaczynski shrugged, "But what about the men in black? Guess you haven't stopped and thought about them yet."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Bass muttered. Kaczynski knelt down and turned Bass' head to face his own.

"Sure you do. What else could they be here for but a cover-up? You're a liability, gunny, plain and simple. The only thing you'll get when…_if_ you make it back is a pat on the back and a bullet in the head."

"Just shut up," Bass shot back, "You're not real. You're dead-"

"-just like Dean?" Kaczynski cocked his head, "Or Chen? How about McNeal? The rest of Omega? Everyone in 3rd Platoon except you and Will," he nodded to Sherman, "Why not join them? They're all waiting for you."

"Just. Shut. Up," Bass hissed, trying to pull Sherman away from the apparition, but one of Kaczynski's hands clamped down on his shoulder with an iron grip.

"Answer me, gunny: why not?" he reached to Bass' belt, drawing his sidearm and placing it against the Marine's head, "You don't even need to pull the trigger. I'm here for your sake, gunny."

"Liar."

A shotgun blast echoed through the cargo bay. Kaczynski reeled back, a bloody mess where his shoulder had been. He whirled to face the newcomer, screeching like an enraged animal.

Another blast send the apparition back another meter, this time with part of his face stripped away, revealing a leering, fanged skull. The shotgun clattered to the floor, its last shell expended, and the figure raised its bladed arm.

His armor was damaged by what looked like a lifetime of war. Macabre trophies adorned it, ranging from the trio of fangs that hung from a strap around his neck to the clawed hands dangling from his belt. His hair was matted with blood, and multiple recent wounds on his face had been sealed in such a way that it looked like a welder had mended the flesh. On his left arm was lashed a vicious, hooked blade, broken from the arm of a slain necromorph. In his right hand was a razor-edged combat knife, both stained red with blood.

Private Jared Wallace slashed his dual blades, carving a furrow across Kaczynski's chest. Black ichor leaked from the wound, but the Marine continued undaunted. Fear had long since left him, just as had his sanity.

"You need me, Bass!" Kaczynski howled, his voice layered with others stolen from the men of 3rd Platoon, "You need all of us!"

"We reject you, demon," Wallace slashed the blades again, inflicting yet another wound against the ghost, "For we see the truth, and see your lies."

"Kill him, gunny! He seeks to silence us!"

"For we are strong, and you are weak." Another slash, another screeching howl.

"Gunny! Help me!" Kaczynski's face contorted as his voice settled, transforming into the visage of a frightened Joseph Dean, "Don't let me die again!"

"For we are right…" Wallace rammed both blades into the apparition's gut. Bass squeezed his eyes shut, trying to shut out the screams that mimicked Dean's voice.

"…and you are wrong." Wallace ripped the blades outward. With one final wail, the apparition exploded into blinding light, piercing even Bass' eyelids and forcing its final moments on him.

The world was dark and silent. Bass could feel the pistol Kaczynski had pressed to his temple still resting against his head. He opened his eyes, and felt that his own arm was holding the gun. With a shaking hand he released his grip, and the weapon clattered to the deck.

Bass suddenly felt tired. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep more than anything else in the universe. Sherman needed medical treatment, he was in the company of a feral Marine, and the shuttle ramp was still down. Any of the abominations that stalked the ship could waltz in at their leisure.

But for now, Bass simply wanted to sleep. He let his eyes close, then slumped over against the stasis container.

* * *

As he slept, he saw an assembly of familiar faces. They crowded around him, some stoic, others smiling sadly. They walked toward him, but all eventually moved past him and out of his view. Bass wanted to follow them, but found himself rooted in place, able to do nothing but watch the parade of friends and comrades.

He saw Commander Cadigan, gray-bearded and serious. He gave Bass a curt nod of acknowledgement. It was the closest thing to a compliment the commander ever gave.

He saw Lieutenant Hikowa, once a constant voice-in-his-ear, now forever silenced.

He saw Sergeant Willis alongside Sergeant Campbell, the ghostly afterimages of Alpha and Beta squads behind them. Willis gave Bass a friendly punch to the shoulder, and Campbell smiled.

He saw McNeal, Janick and Jones, and felt a momentary pang of guilt as they walked by him. They gave no indicator of anger against him, but Bass somehow knew their presence meant they hadn't made it out alive. Chen followed them, too, his fate all too apparent.

He saw Sherman and Kaczynski, two veterans of Tanith and near constant companions. Kaczynski bumped fists with Sherman, then walked past Bass and out of sight. Sherman remained behind.

Only a handful was left. He saw Dean, standing upright, but staring blankly into space, glassy eyes unseeing.

He saw Wallace, without his macabre trophies. His image wavered, like a malfunctioning hologram.

He looked again to Sherman, seeing a sergeant's stripes pinned to his shoulder.

Last of the men, he saw Hark. His prosthetic arm was missing, replaced by a flesh-and-blood limb, and the mark of 3rd Platoon had been branded on his forearm.

Bass and the three were suddenly floating in the void of space. In the distance, he could see Earth, but it was growing further and further away. He looked down at his own body, seeing the Marine Corp emblem on his arm slowly erase itself, as if he was watching the tattoo's creation in reverse.

Finally, he saw himself. The chevrons and rockers of a Master Sergeant were emblazoned on his dress uniform, and the wavering images of his platoon were assembled behind him.

And as the rest, they faded away to nothing, just as surely as Bass knew he could never be the man he once was. He'd lost a part of himself on Tanith, but he'd survived, albeit scarred. After the horrors of the _Ishimura_, he couldn't have his old self back even if he wanted it.

Somewhere in the distance, he heard the echoing voice of the imposter Kaczynski. But it was fractured and fading, and soon out of earshot. Whatever had given his guilt physical form had been broken, and blessed silence reigned over Bass' subconscious.

But in the end, it was all just a dream. It could mean nothing, or it could mean everything, but it would not dictate the future. What path the future took was up to former Gunnery Sergeant Charlie Bass and the brave souls who had fallen into the mouth of Hell and lived to tell the tale.

**And that's our story, folks. R&R, same as the prior chapters, anonymous accepted. I'll post an epilogue to provide some bookends for the story, but that's it for the main body of _Semper Fi_. Special thanks to AngelCommando for being with me since the first upload, SushiJaguar for doing the same since the second go, and anyone else I may've forgotten. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. **


	8. Epilogue

**Access restricted to Alpha level clearance or greater. **

**Please re-enter name and password to continue. **

**Enter name: Vasquez, Paula R.  
**

**Password: ***********

**Authorizing…please wait…**

**Access granted. Welcome, Admiral. **

**…**

**Load Aegis 7 incident vessels? (Y/N)**

**Loading…**

**Loading…**

**Loading…**

**Done.**

_**USM Valor**_

**Crew: 26**

**Custodial: 2**

**Extension/family: 1**

**Other: 38**

**Total: 67**

**Confirmed KIA: 39**

**Suspected KIA: 25**

**MIA: 3**

**Vessel status: Destroyed**

**…**

**Next vessel? (Y/N)**

**Loading…**

**Loading…**

**Loading…**

**Loading…**

**Done.**

_**USG Ishimura**_

**Crew: 80**

**Clerical: 65**

**Colonial: 307**

**Custodial: 88**

**Extension/family: 208**

**Medical: 69**

**Security: 89**

**Service: 145**

**Technical: 177**

**Other: 104**

**Total: 1332**

**Confirmed KIA: 987**

**Suspected KIA: 322**

**MIA: 12**

**Vessel status: Heavily damaged, recovered**

**…**

**Next vessel? (Y/N)**

**Loading…**

**Done.**

_**USG Kellion**_

**Crew: 3**

**Security: 1**

**Technical: 1**

**Total: 5**

**Confirmed KIA: 3**

**Suspected KIA: 1**

**MIA: 1**

**Vessel status: Destroyed**

**…**

**Next vessel? (Y/N)**

**Loading…**

**Loading…**

**Done.**

_**USG**_** [EXPUNGED] (Vessel ID not found)**

**Crew: 37**

**[EXPUNGED]: 62**

**Total: 99**

**Vessel status: Undamaged**

**…**

**Additional notes? (Y/N)**

**Loading…**

**Loading…**

**Loading stopped. Alpha level clearance or higher required. Please re-enter password, Admiral.**

**Password: ***********

**Verifying…**

**Verified. Thanks you, Admiral. **

**Additional Notes? (Y/N)**

**Loading…**

**Loading…**

**Done.**

**Transcript, communication between Commander J. Stalvern and unknown party.**

**[?]: Report, commander.**

**J. Stalvern: Operation was a partial success. The **_**Ishimura**_** has been retaken, and is en route to Titan station as we speak. **

**[?]: I worry about your word choice, commander. Why 'partial'? **

**J. Stalvern: Unfortunately, the primary target was destroyed. Agent Daniels died while attempting to recover it. **

**[?]: I've seen other replicas withstand damage from anything short of nuclear fission. How was this one destroyed?**

**J. Stalvern: As we understand it, one of the survivors dropped a part of Aegis 7 on top of it. A part large enough to destabilize the entire planet. **

**[?]: Regrettable, though impressive. What became of the survivor?**

**J. Stalvern: We're not sure yet. Agent Daniels gave us an ID, and we haven't found a body yet. **

**[?]: Very well. I'll dispatch the **_**O'Bannon**_** to try and salvage what they can from the planet's surface. Maybe we'll get lucky. **

**J. Stalvern: Of course, sir. Also, we were unable to confirm…seventeen deaths. I've ordered the techs to filter DNA samples from every body we found to try and narrow the list. **

**[?]: Keep me informed. I trust you to finish clean-up. I'll figure out some way to get a scapegoat for the loss of a planet cracker. Overseer out. **

**Communication terminated. Repeat? (Y/N)**

**Thank you, admiral. Logging off…**

**

* * *

**

Admiral Paula Vasquez tried and failed to keep herself composed. Cold sweat formed unbidden on her forehead and palms, and a hand reached past her to pluck the data chip from her personal console.

"Titan station…" the man mused, glancing back to his two cohorts, "Fancy shore leave on the Sprawl?" One of the men smirked. The other continued to watch the door, unmoving. It was an unnecessary precaution, and Vasquez knew no one was coming: the three were already wearing the uniforms of her security detail. Vasquez tried not to think of what had become of them.

The one directly behind Vasquez pressed a finger to his ear.

"We've got it, and then some. Is the backdoor still open?" Vasquez couldn't hear the reply, but the man nodded, satisfied with the answer. He holstered his pistol and turned back to Vasquez. He pulled open one of the drawers of her desk, rummaging through it for a moment before finding the handgun she kept there in the event of an emergency. She cursed herself for not getting it when she'd first gotten a knock at her quarters reporting a 'minor security problem.'

The man turned the pistol over in his hands. It was an antique revolver, chambering cased rounds and boasting an ivory grip. He opened the chamber, plucking out five of the six bullets with gloved fingers before snapping it back shut.

"Here," he extended the pistol by the barrel to Vasquez, "Take it." She hesitated, and understandably so. Both of the other men still had their weapons out and primed. She'd be dead before she could even cock the hammer.

"No trick," the man assured her, giving a slight smile. Vasquez reached cautiously out, reluctantly taking it. The already heavy weapon felt like it weighed a ton. The man nodded, satisfied, and gestured to the man who'd been silently guarding the door since the beginning of the ordeal. He knew what to do, and approached the quaking admiral.

"Look, you can just leave now," Vasquez pleaded as the man knelt to be at eye level with her, "You have the data. I can't go to anyone, either. If they find out I gave you this, I'm as good as dead. I…I can disappear. I'll just-"

"Don't be afraid," the man said, turning her chin with one hand to face him, "We've not going to kill you." His tone wasn't reassuring. Vasquez continued to plead her case, growing more desperate by the second.

"There's more than just that! I can-"

"We have all we need," the man cut her off, "Just look into my eyes, and everything will be fine."

Vasquez's mouth moved, but no words came out. Her mind grew cloudy as she focused on the man's eyes. They were covered by the shadow from his stolen cap, but shone through the darkness nonetheless.

She could hear voices, somehow familiar and alien at the same time. They didn't come from around her, but scratched at her from within her ears. They wanted…something. Something she had, something they lacked. With each passing second, the voices grew in intensity, and Vasquez wanted more than anything to know what they were saying.

Vasquez remembered an old story that her grandmother had once told her. She had been young, afraid of the dark and the ghosts she believed to be lurking in the shadows. Her grandmother had smiled and told her about _la lengua del muerte_, the language of the dead.

_Paulita, why do the spirits frighten you? Have you done anything to anger them?_

_N-no, Nana, never. _

_Then you should not fear them. Be respectful, niña. They were once just like you and me. _

_B-but I hear them! In my dreams, in the dark. I'm scared of them, Nana. _

_Paulita, that is only how they speak. It is the language of the dead. _

_Then why is it so scary?_

_Because you can't understand it, niña. The dead speak to us all the time, but the living do not know their language. _

_Can we ever understand them, nana? They sound so sad. _

_No, niña. La lengua del muerte only comes with the end of life. You won't know it for a long time. _

"But…then I can hear mamá again?" Vasquez murmured, her eyes unfocused.

"Of course, Paulita," the man smiled warmly, "And _abuelo_, too."

"Thank you," tears dribbled down Vasquez's cheeks, "I'm so relieved." Lost in her memories, and with a teary smile on her face, Vasquez raised the antique revolver to her head and pulled the trigger.

* * *

The news wouldn't hit the networks until the next day at the earliest, but police channels were already calling it a clear-cut suicide. The pilot smiled, listening to the weakly encrypted channels over his headset. Flawless. He extended augmetic digits over the control panel, entering the ship's startup sequence.

The leader felt no pride in the killing, but respected that it had to be done. It would buy them valuable undetected days on their trip, and the element of surprise was integral. They were but four, and their foe was so many more.

The veteran felt satisfied. They had the data they needed, and they had the cover to get them to their destination. Things couldn't have gone more smoothly. Two of his fingers abruptly clenched. He muttered a curse, popping them off his hand and setting to work on them with a set of small tools. A pirate's life had its disadvantages, after all.

The hunter sat away from the others, watching the makeshift coffin across from him. He murmured softly to himself, uttering a Spanish lullaby he had no right knowing. He poured a variety of colored pills into his palm, popping them into his mouth and washing them down with a mouthful taken from a bottle of whiskey.

The leader glanced at the hunter. He was getting worse. He said that he couldn't remember himself properly without the buzz of alcohol and narcotics. The leader believed him. Whatever he had unlocked in his brain had been locked away for a reason.

The leader looked through the information on the data chip, searching beyond what the admiral had shown them. He scrolled through rapidly, but paused as something caught his attention. His eyes widened, and he smiled.

Someone else had made it out alive, someone that EarthGov and the Church wanted with equal fervor. But as far as the leader was concerned, it was someone that had fought his way through hell and survived.

_And that_, he thought, _is someone worth finding._


End file.
